(KRON) — An Oakland coffee shop posted an apology on social media after a viral video showed presumed employees denying a customer access to a bathroom that had antisemitic graffiti written on it. The incident at Farley’s East, located at 33 Grand Ave, was captured on a video that went viral on social media.
The video shows three employees standing in between the customer and the door of the bathroom. According to the video, the customer had previously gone into the bathroom and wanted to re-enter to document the graffiti.
After the customer said she wanted to go into the restroom, one of the employees responded, “I know Israel loves taking private property and saying it’s their own, but *indiscernible.*”
The employees said they have a “right to refuse service” and asked the woman to leave, before offering to let her use another restroom. About 1:15 into the video, she was finally allowed in.
The video shows “Zionism = fascism” written on the mirror above the sink and “Your neutrality/apathy is enabling genocide” written on a diaper-changing station. After allowing the woman in the bathroom, the employees said, “History didn’t start in 1948, lady,” and “Free Palestine.”
The 1:35-long video has more than 7 million views and 8,500 retweets on X.
Farley’s East apologized in a Facebook post published on Wednesday. The post referred to the graffiti as “hate speech.” Read the full apology below:
“Dear Community, In response to the recent incident at our family-owned cafe, we want to offer an acknowledgement [sic] and a sincere apology. As context, hate speech graffiti was written in our bathroom. We do not support hate speech; this does not reflect our values. After a customer used the bathroom and wished to return to document the graffiti, they were initially denied access and then allowed to enter the bathroom to film the graffiti. We apologize for this error and the distress caused to the customer. We’ve taken corrective measures with our staff and removed the offensive graffiti. We’re not anti-Semitic; we value diversity and inclusivity. We’re committed to ongoing staff training for a safe and welcoming environment. Thank you for understanding that we are a small business doing our best to operate a community business in a difficult environment.”
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Farley’s has another location in San Francisco’s Portero Hill neighborhood. KRON4 was not able to reach Farley’s East by phone for comment.