Starbucks has been accused of racism yet again after a Latino customer at a Los Angeles area store found a racial slur scribbled on his cup.
The man, who would only be identified as Peter, told CBS Los Angeles he received a drink with the word “BEANER” on it at the Starbucks in La Cañada, California.
“En español es ‘frijoleros,’ ‘beaner,’ you know, in English,” said the victim’s friend Miguel Acosta. “He went to Starbucks, and they asked for his name, and his name is ‘Peter,’ and they wrote this ‘beaner,’ And he’s saying that’s not fair.”
Acosta added that he does not understand why Starbucks targeted his friend and believed his friend did not deserve to be treated that way.
The store manager declined to give a statement, but the coffee company released a statement saying it has “apologized to the customer.”
“This is not indicative of the type of experience we want our customers to have when they walk into our stores. We have apologized to the customer directly and are working to make things right,” Starbucks announced in a statement.
The incident took place just over two weeks before the coffee chain is scheduled to close 8,000 of its company-owned stores in the U.S. to make its employees undergo racial bias training.
Starbucks implemented the training after an incident last month where employees at a Philadelphia Starbucks called the police on two black men, leading to their arrests for trespassing. Police did not file any charges against the men.
The training was the company’s response to a social media-fueled boycott of the coffee chain when a video of the incident went viral.