Starbucks in Dublin fined over racist drawing on customer’s cup

DUBLIN — A Starbucks customer ordered a matcha green tea latte and received her order with a racist drawing on the cup, a Dublin industrial tribunal has found.

Ireland’s Workplace Relations Commission ordered the Starbucks outlet to pay €12,000 to the customer, Suchavadee Foley, after she received her order with a “slanty-eyed” image drawn on the cup.

Foley, an Irish citizen of Thai heritage, filed a racial harassment case after the outlet offered her coupons but no acknowledgement that the image was offensive.

“It is not disputed that the employee drew an image of a smile and ‘slanty’ eyes on the cup as a way of marking it as the complainant’s,” said the written ruling by adjudicator Kevin Baneham.

“It is clear that the visual depiction relates to her race. It is as offensive and as unimaginative as a 19th century Punch cartoon,” he said in reference to the defunct British magazine.

Starbucks has gotten into hot water on racial matters before, including in 2018 when it was accused of discriminating against Black customers in certain U.S. outlets.

When Foley went with her boyfriend Craig to the Starbucks in Tallaght, southwest Dublin, in January 2020, she started to spell out her Thai first name but was stopped by the person taking her order, Beatrice Prata.

The employee — from the Brazilian city of São Paolo who had started her job at Starbucks only the month before — instead drew a quick cartoon of Foley on the cup.

Lawyers for Starbucks argued that the image was akin to an emoji and contended that Foley had initially reacted positively to the cartoon.

Baneham ruled that Foley’s initial reaction instead reflected embarrassment, shock and a desire to avoid confrontation over “a cup with ‘slanty’ eyes.” He found that the outlet had violated Ireland’s Equal Status Act on racial grounds.

After Foley’s boyfriend complained to outlet manager Mateusz Piotrowski, the couple were offered coupons for future orders.

Offering coupons “may be appropriate where there is a customer service issue,” Baneham wrote. “This was not a customer service issue but racial harassment.”

He said Starbucks employees sometimes used drawings on cups when struggling with a customer’s name, and this was included in customer service training.

However, he found that Starbucks’ guidance to staff on “the power of drawings and pictures” may be deficient, particularly as perceived by customers.

Starbucks’ argument that Prata’s drawing “was not based on prejudice … does not take account of the impact the drawing had on the complainant. Harassment is in the eye of the beholder,” he said.