Chipotle is reconsidering the termination of one of their managers after she became the victim of an apparent race hoax.
On Saturday, Chipotle fired one of its St. Paul, MN, managers after a viral video showed that she refused to serve five black customers. She accused them of planning to take the food without paying for it.
“You gotta pay, because you’ve never had money when you come in here,” she tells the group. Another employee says later, “We’re not gonna make food unless you guys actually have money.”
Other than that, the two-minute video primarily shows the group complaining about the treatment and taunting the staff.
One of the customers, 21-year-old Masud Ali, posted the video with a tweet that reads, “Can a group of young well established African American get a bite to eat after a long workout session. @ChipotleTweets??” This video has been viewed 7 million times.
In a subsequent tweet, Ali also accused the young woman of racism.
“I don’t like how she’s laughing like something is funny,” he tweeted. “So when a WHITE woman walks in you change your policy of ‘show us income before you get served’ ????? So @Chipotle gonna sit here and tell me I can’t eat because they think I look like someone that stole from them before??”
Chipotle reacted quickly Saturday by firing the manager and releasing a statement:
We are committed to treating all of our customers fairly and with respect. … Regarding what happened at the St. Paul restaurant, the manager thought these gentlemen were the same customers from Tuesday night who weren’t able to pay for their meal. Regardless, this is not how we treat our customers and as a result, the manager has been terminated and the restaurant is being re-trained to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.
But now evidence has emerged that the manager did make the correct decision.
“In subsequent interviews, though, Chipotle representatives admitted that the manager might have been right in claiming that individuals in the group had ordered food just days before without paying once their order was completed,” Fox News reports.
“We are not able to confirm that with 100 percent certainty,” the Chipotle official told a local news outler. “We asked Masud if he was in our restaurant on Tuesday and he said no.”
But Masud Ali’s Twitter feed is filled with brags about “dining and dashing,” which is where you order food and take off without paying the bill.
Although Ali has since deleted the tweets, in one from 2016, he suggests finding a different Chipotle because “I think chipotle catchin up to us fam … should we change locations[.]”
Ali also wants other employees fired and has retweeted tweets mocking a black employee:
You terminated her but not her sidekick? Hmmmm interesting. Just because you “retrain” someone doesn’t make them less racist I hope y’all know that. https://t.co/hLlVwedQRm
— Masud Ali 🍑 (@Masudaliii) November 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/xVixenCurlsx/status/1063629571692552192
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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