Philadelphia Starbucks Customer Claims Barista Mocked His Speech Impediment

A college student in Pennsylvania with a stutter has accused a Starbucks employee of mocking his speech impediment last week while calling out a drink order at the store.

Sam, 28, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, said he faced ridicule when a barista imitated his stutter by saying "OK, S-S-Sam" when calling his name to pick up his iced coffee. The alleged incident occurred around 3 p.m. on Wednesday at a Starbucks in Philadelphia.

"It’s rare, as an adult, that that kind of disrespect happens," Sam, withholding his last name, told Philly.com. "It happens, but it’s really rare to see it in print."

The matter didn’t stop there as Sam claimed when he got back to his office, he noticed "SSSam" was printed on the label where his name should have been. The 28-year-old has had a speech impediment since he was 6 years old.

"Stuttering is an affliction that harms people every day," Sam told the news outlet. "But I’m not the right person to be the face of that fight."

Sam’s friend Tan Lekwijit, bothered by what happened, posted a picture of the cup on Facebook. He claims he also posted details about the incident on Starbucks company page but it was deleted.

Lekwiji said in the post that Sam wrote an email to customer service but all his friend received was a generic response from the company saying that it was sorry he felt disrespected and offered Sam a $5 gift card.

"I thought it was kind of insulting," Sam said. "I also thought they didn’t take my issue seriously. It was as if they give $5 to anyone who complains about anything. I sort of got a generic email, and I didn’t feel like I was heard."

Starbucks spokesperson Reggie Borges told Philly.com the company extended an apology to Sam on Monday and that the incident is under investigation.

"We are taking this incident seriously, and we have begun a full investigation," Borges said. "We have a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of discrimination. We don’t feel like this [discrimination] is reflective of our values or of our mission. We want everyone who comes to our stores to feel valued and to have a positive experience."

Meanwhile, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund is urging Starbucks to make more significant strides for tolerance. The civil rights group, in a report released on Monday, suggests that the coffee company should regularly audit its stores for racial profiling, update its policy manuals, and examine its pay practices and processes for any biases, CNBC reported.

A Starbucks in Philadelphia made headlines in April following the arrest of two black men accused of trespassing while waiting for a friend inside a store. On May 29, the coffee chain closed 8,000 of its stores for several hours for anti-bias training.