The snow is melting, but the ICE doesn’t seem to be.
Reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have started to increase in Columbus as the year begins. So have the protests against those agents. And last month, a local coffee shop chain got in hot water online when it told workers that it would not refuse service to ICE agents.
A late January Reddit post shared a message from Stauf’s Coffee Roasters management to employees about what to do if an ICE agent entered one of the chain’s four locations throughout the city.
“I have been asked by an employee about how to deal with a customer who is an ICE agent,” reads the message, the veracity of which Matter News verified with a Stauf’s employee who received it. “I know there is a lot of emotion behind this situation, but I would say that our job is to serve anyone in our community regardless of their occupation.”
In responses within that Reddit post, and in comments on the official social media pages for Stauf’s and Cup O Joe (the two businesses fall under the same ownership), people understandably got very mad. “Since when was ICE part of our community? They’re federal agents dressed in Jan 6 cosplay and terrorizing citizens while violating numerous constitutional amendments,” one commenter wrote.
The chain’s CEO, Mark Swanson, first responded to a couple of these comments – in a since-deleted Facebook exchange, he wrote that Stauf’s was “on the side of the Constitution, justice and peace.” The company also released a formal statement about the situation.
“It has never been our policy to ban people from our establishments because of their jobs or places of employment,” the statement reads in part. “We believe that this is a nation of immigrants. We believe the current deployments of ICE is not meeting their mission and is instilling fear across our communities. We will welcome peaceful customers from all parties and walks of life.”
People were still very mad, so Stauf’s deleted the statement and has been silent on social media since. (Management did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.)
As a result, what most people haven’t realized, according to two baristas who work at the coffee chain, is that the workers have already won.
Stauf’s has agreed to let its workers put up “No ICE” signs on their doors and to voice their own opinions. At least two Stauf’s locations have posted these signs. At the shop’s Victorian Village location on Neil Avenue, a laminated piece of paper reading “Baristas say ICE OUT” in big black handwritten letters is taped to the front door. Inside the shop, on a table between two plush green couches, there are two issues of New York Magazine. One is about the alleged deportation “trap” used by ICE agents in New York City; the other is titled “Your Friendly Neighborhood Resistance” and features a cover photo of a Minneapolis resident in a gas mask.
At another location, one worker wore a handwritten “ICE OUT” pin on their apron during a recent visit, while the store manager there has posted infographics in the break room instructing what to do if ICE is spotted and how to safely and legally record them.
The Sunday after the social media fallout, Stauf’s management held an in-person, all-hands staff meeting to talk about the policy. “That meeting was mostly [Swanson] apologizing that he had done this and then asking us to tell him what we wanted him to do,” said one Stauf’s barista, who requested anonymity to protect their job. “[Management has] let all of the stores make their own decisions.”
I am not a lawyer. But Stauf’s baristas would probably be well within their rights to refuse service to an ICE agent. Under civil rights law, businesses can refuse service to anyone as long as the refusal isn’t based on a protected characteristic such as race, sex, or religion; employment is not a protected characteristic. And as long as ICE wasn’t executing a warrant or engaged in other law enforcement activity, baristas would probably not be obstructing them from doing their jobs in a way that is legally dangerous by refusing to give them coffee.
Two baristas told me they would personally not serve an ICE agent.
“ICE is very pointedly not a part of our community,” the first barista said. “I think part of what you are obligated to do if ICE agents come to your city is to make it as difficult as possible for them to be here. By denying them access to things like coffee shops, denying them the ability to use the bathroom, denying them the ability to [eat] lunch, you’re making it actively difficult for them to be in the city.”
Despite relenting to its workers, though, Stauf’s has still been publicly quiet about its official stance on ICE.
“Part of the reason why I’m so annoyed that they won’t just post a new public statement is that they have acquiesced,” one barista said. “We have gotten what we wanted, but I don’t think people know, which I find very frustrating. The rumor mill is that the office feels that no matter what statement they give, the internet would just be mean to them anyway, so they’re not even going to bother trying.”
Since deleting the initial statement, Swanson only appears to have posted one more comment related to the situation: “This is my fault. I am so sorry. I do not support these jack-booted thugs. I thought I was creating a safer place. I did not. I am so sorry. My co-workers are not at fault. I am.”
