NC Smoothie King worker claimed Black girl’s $20 bill was fake, igniting outrage
Smoothie King apologized and vowed to retrain workers nationwide after a worker at one of its NC stores claimed a Black girl’s $20 bill was fake.
The girl’s older brother posted video on social media of what happened next at the Harrisburg store:
The girl’s mother is shown entering the store and successfully using the bill before she confronts the worker.
“Someone just died after he was falsely accused of having counterfeit money,” the mom tells the Smoothie King worker.
She was referring to George Floyd, whose death in Minneapolis Police Department custody has sparked weeks of street protests nationwide.
The video of the Smoothie King encounter has drawn 908,000 views since the brother posted it on Twitter at 1:30 p.m. Monday. The brother, whose Twitter handle is “Your Friendly Neighbor,” lives in New Jersey.
“How dare you accuse my daughter of having counterfeit money,” the girl’s mother says to the employee, according to the video.
The mother asks the worker to put the bill through a device the worker told her had earlier indicated the bill was fake. He did, and it did not indicate the bill was fake. He then tells the woman the device sometimes indicates a bill is fake if it is “crumpled” going through the device.
The girl’s brother posted on Twitter that when the employee returned the bill to the girl, “him and his friend at the store were laughing and joking about the incident. Where is the humor in Black Lives being taken by police for nonsense?! Notice how SHOOK he is when he’s called out on his racism.”
Smoothie King replied to the girl’s brother on Twitter, saying the company has “a zero tolerance policy for racism and discrimination.”
The company also tweeted that it had “come to a resolution” with the girl, but did not disclose specifics.
Smoothie King also said it’s updating its training “to further educate our team members” about its zero-tolerance policy for racism and discrimination and about its commitment to being an “inclusive place.”
In a post later Wednesday, company officials said they “would like to express our sincerest apologies” to the family and thanked them for entering the store.
The company also posted that the store’s cash reading machines were “unreliable” and that the machines have been removed.
Brian Augustine, an owner of the Smoothie King Harrisburg store, told the Observer later Wednesday that the 17-year-old employee and his 17-year-old co-worker have had their lives threatened on social media and for their safety stayed home Wednesday.
He said the franchisee’s director of operations met with the girl and her family for two hours, explaining how the one employee tried at least 10 or 15 times to get the bill through the store’s two bill reading machines, but the machines failed to accept the bill each time.
The director of operations and the family reviewed store camera footage showing the numerous attempts by the employees to get the $20 bill to pass, Augustine said.
In a statement later Wednesday, Augustine also said: “During the meeting, we also tested the same $20 bill again with (the family) there. This time the bill came back as ‘Fail’ nine times before it finally showed ‘Pass’ on the 10th and 11th attempts.
“At the conclusion of the visit, we all agreed that the team could have communicated things better, but that the real issue was with the cash readers.”
Augustine said that after the machine rejected the girl’s bill Monday, another person pulled up to the drive-through window with another $20 bill that wouldn’t scan. The employee didn’t know at the time that the person was the girl’s father using the same bill, Augustine said.
“The team member once again tried running the bill numerous times with the same result,” according to the statement. “At this point the team member was afraid the issue was with the machine rather than the bill. … He decided to accept the bill for the father, as he didn’t want to continue turning away payments if the machine was the issue.”
That’s when the family entered the store to “confront the team members,” he said. “This is where the video on Twitter starts. Any reaction of the team when the bill scans and shows ‘Pass’ was due to the absolute shock that they scanned it over 30 times with no luck, only for it to ‘Pass’ now.”
On Facebook Wednesday, Smoothie King announced a $100,000 donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund “to promote fair and equitable treatment of all people, and are updating our training to further ensure inclusion and respect in our stores and throughout our organization. Let’s be part of the change together.”
“Injustice and inequality are not right,” the company posted. “What is right is using our voice to educate and our resources to fund causes that fight discrimination.”
In June 2019, two Smoothie King employees were fired after racist names were added to receipts at two Smoothie King stores in Charlotte, Observer news partner WBTV reported at the time. The stores on Mount Holly-Huntersville Road and Davis Lake Parkway were temporarily closed, but later reopened.
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 11:09 AM.