California lawmaker knocks Starbucks over racial slur on customer cup

A California congresswoman on Thursday mocked Starbucks after a customer at a Los Angeles-area store reportedly found a racial slur printed on his cup.

Rep. Norma Torres (D), who was born in Guatemala, shared a tweet offering to provide “free diversity training” for the coffee chain after incident.

Her tweet came after a Latino man named Pedro received his drink order at a store earlier this week with the word “beaner” printed on the cup. Starbucks issued an apology over the incident Wednesday.

“Free diversity training for @Starbucks,” Torres tweeted, including an image of herself with two men labeled “human beings” while taking a jab at the company by showing separate images labeled “beans” and “coffee beans.”

Free diversity training for @Starbucks #GetIt pic.twitter.com/DorKBhscQM

— Rep. Norma Torres (@NormaJTorres) May 18, 2018

{mosads}

A friend of Pedro’s spoke with a local CBS News affiliate about the Starbucks incident this week, describing him as sad following the event. 

Starbucks announced last month that it would close its more than 8,000 company-owned stores on the afternoon of May 29 to conduct racial-bias training for employees following a manager’s decision in Philadelphia to call police after two black men sat down at a store to wait for someone before buying anything.

Torres’s district lies about an hour east of the town of La Cañada Flintridge, Calif., where the latest Starbucks incident took place earlier this week.