Thursday, March 28, 2024

Angry Orchard Fires Manager/Security Team Who Racially Profiled Black Couple Mid-Proposal

angry orchard staffers

*Angry Orchard says “we badly mishandled the situation” involving a black couple who visited the farm in Walden, New York and was accused by staffers of stealing.

As we previously reported, Cathy-Marie Hamlet said her fiancé was in the middle of asking her to be his wife when he was forced to stop mid-proposal by security who accused him of stealing a t-shirt from the gift shop.

Hamlet and her fiancé, Clyde Jackson, and six friends drove from New York City to the brewery on Sunday to celebrate Jackson’s 40th birthday, but the festive mood was soured when a female security guard approached them multiple times, asking the group to check their bags, purses and pockets after a t-shirt allegedly went missing from the gift shop, PEOPLE reports. 

Angry Orchard issued a statement saying the company has taken action against its employees by firing the manager and the security members that were on duty at the time of the incident. 

“We reached out and spoke directly with the guest involved to express our sincerest apology and offered to make it right,” Angry Orchard said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. “We badly mishandled the situation and our team overreacted.”

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The company added: “We’re extremely embarrassed this happened and have taken the immediate steps to remove the manager who was on-duty from her role and replace members of the security team.”

In response to the incident, Angry Orchard also announced a plan to make sure “everyone on our team, from cidermakers to security, [has] additional training in the areas of security awareness and unconscious bias to prevent something like this from happening in the future.”

“We’re deeply sorry that our guests were mistreated. The situation doesn’t reflect our values of respect for all and creating a welcoming environment for all our guests,” the statement concluded.

Cathie-Marie wrote about the incident in a lengthy Facebook post on Sunday, explaining that she, her fiancé and their friends had traveled to Angry Orchard “to enjoy an afternoon with some hard cider.”

While there, Hamlet and Jackson sat at a table outside the gift shop where he was set to pop the question. But before Clyde had the chance to get down on one knee, an Angry Orchard security official approached them, telling him, “‘I’m sorry sir, but I have to check your back pocket. I was told that you stole a T-shirt from the gift store.’”

“My boyfriend then emptied all of his pockets, while still trying to keep the ring box hidden from my sight,” Hamlet said. “She then walked away, and my boyfriend and I sat down at the table and he began his proposal speech.”

But the couple was interrupted again mid-way through the proposal.

“She came back over to us and said, ‘Now I need to search your purse,'” Hamlet said. “My bag was small and I couldn’t have fit a T-shirt in it, but I emptied the contents of my purse anyway.”

After the second interruption, Hamlet said she asked the security guard what her motives were for approaching them.

“I told her that I knew she was just doing her job, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she kept coming up to us because we’re black,” Hamlet said. “We were the only black people there, besides three of the friends who came along with us.”

The security guard denied race was a factor and she left the couple alone once her search for a gift-store T-shirt turned up empty. But immediately after Hamlet accepted Jackson’s proposal and their friends gathered to celebrate, they were harassed by the security guard for a third time. 

“She said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were all part of the same party. I have to check all of your purses and pockets,'” Cathy-Marie said. “At this point, five other security guards came over.”

“I felt humiliated, especially after one of my white friends made a point of asking them to check her bag for the T-shirt, but they refused to do so,” she added. 

“So at this point, the rest of security walks over and there’s 6 of them approaching us,” Hamlet wrote. “Of course my friends told them none of us stole a T-shirt from their establishment, at which point they started getting aggressive and saying that not only them, but also patrons saw my boyfriend steal the shirt and/or transfer it to me to put in my bag!! Another woman in security yelled to one of the male security, ‘Call the police! I saw you steal it.’

Cathy-Marie then claimed that “security started taking our pictures, recording video, and took a picture of my license plate number.”

Ultimately,  they decided to leave “rather than be attacked by the multiple security guards of Angry Orchard.” 

She posted a photo of security “happily waving us goodbye in the parking lot as we exited.”

 

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