The staff of a coffee shop in Oakland, California refused to let a Jewish customer into the bathroom.
Video, which you can watch below, shows employees of Farley’s East denying the Jewish woman access and attacking her with anti-Jewish hate speech. The woman had initially complained that there was antisemitic graffiti in the bathroom and when she tried to show them – she was blocked.
The video shows the staffers ranting that it’s “not 1948” and “you can’t steal private property like Israel.”
Inside the bathroom someone had written, “Zionism equals Fascism.” Other messages were scrawled on the walls: “Your neutrality/apathy is enabling genocide” and “Free Palestine.”
“I want to go in the restroom,” the woman repeatedly implores the staffers, who tell her it’s private property even while confirming she was a customer who’d eaten there.
A male staffer then smiles as he tells her: “I know Israel loves taking private property and saying it’s their own, but we gotta have … ”
As the woman again says that she “was a patron here and I have a right to go into the restroom,” the man replies, “And we have a right to refuse service.”
Farley’s East confirmed the incident happened and said they had taken “corrective measures” with the staff.
“As context, hate speech graffiti was written in our bathroom. We do not support hate speech; this does not reflect our values,” the coffee shop wrote in what it called “a sincere apology.”
“After a customer used the bathroom and wished to return to document the graffiti, they were initially denied access and then allowed to enter the bathroom to film the graffiti. We apologize for this error and the distress caused to the customer,” the statement continues.
Let’s hope by “corrective measures” they mean they fired the staff. Disgusting!