HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Starbucks could be in hot water again over how African Americans are treated in their stores.
- Incident occurred at Regency Square location on April 22
- Scene reminiscent of 2018 incident in Philadelphia Starbucks location
- Potential plaintiff, attorney unsure when lawsuit will be filed
- More Hillsborough County stories
During a press conference on Wednesday, Lorne Green, alongside his attorney, Jasmine Rand, accused employees at the Starbucks location in Brandon's Regency Square of racial profiling.
Green said that when he walked into the store on April 22 to meet a client for a meeting, he went into the restroom before ordering anything.
He said he heard a female say, “A big black man is going to the bathroom.”
Once inside, according to Rand, Green heard someone knocking on the door.
“This incessant knocking starts,” said Rand. “Knocking on the door, over and over again. ‘Do you need fire rescue? Do you need fire rescue?’ And it became very clear that asking him if he needed fire rescue was not actually about helping Mr. Lorne[sic]. Simply, all my client did was use the bathroom while black.”
Calling Corporate
Green said he was getting nervous about what was happening on the other side of the restroom door, so he called and spoke to a representative at Starbucks Corporate Offices from inside the restroom.
Green and his attorney played an excerpt from that call during the press conference.
REP: Ah, so you feel like this is racially motivated?
GREEN: It is, very! I walked in, she immediately, not even 5 minutes, she goes, “'A black male went inside' and called the police on me before I even got in the bathroom."
“I didn’t know what was on the other side of that door,” Green said. “Cause no one identified who they were and it felt like a crowd of people and I was thinking, 'do you really want to open this door right now?'”
Once Green did walk out of the restroom, he was given a trespass notice from Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office deputies at the scene and asked to leave.
Starbucks officials released this statement in reference to the incident:
“We have zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind and take this type of accusation very seriously. We are conducting an investigation to understand what happened and will take appropriate action.”
This incident comes almost one year after two black men were forced out of a Starbucks in Philadelphia. Starbucks responded by closing down all their stores for one day last May to conduct racial bias sensitivity training.
Green and his attorney have not decided when they may file a lawsuit against the coffee shop.