A coffee shop in Cleveland sparked a heated debate when an employee told a customer he couldn’t buy coffee for a homeless person.
The Copper Moon reportedly has a policy that prohibits customers from giving purchased goods to the homeless people hanging out in the store, according to an employee recorded in a TikTok.
In the August TikTok posted by @superheroeveryday2, a barista explains that he can’t sell her coffee if she plans to give it to a homeless person.
He claimed: ‘I will lose my job.
‘The policy is that this causes problems for our employees, because people at the front are harassing customers.’
TikTok user @superheroeveryday2 recorded interacting with a Copper Moon barista who told her she couldn’t buy coffee for a homeless person
A barista served coffee to four coffee shop customers (stock image)
In the caption, @superheroeveryday2 wrote, “He witnessed me talking to a homeless man and the first thing he said was if the coffee is for him I can’t serve you.”
She then told the barista that she did not feel threatened or harassed.
During filming, she kept the camera pointed at the counter and did not show the barista’s face.
The employee allegedly asked the customer why the homeless man doesn’t get a job “like the rest of us,” according to her caption.
The Copper Moon did not respond to DailyMail.com’s requests for comment.
This policy came as a huge shock to @superheroeveryday2: she couldn’t believe she was being told what to do with her purchase.
The Copper Moon Coffee Shop is located in Cleveland, Ohio
But the issue wasn’t so one-sided in the comment section of the post, where more than 8,600 users shared their thoughts on the matter.
Some users quickly came to the barista’s defense. One user said: ‘If you work in fast food restaurants, you understand.’
Another user shared his personal experiences: “I had to tell customers to stop buying men’s stuff because he would hang around the front all the time and when people told him no, he would follow them and curse at them.”
People explained that employees are often pressured by their managers to enforce these types of policies.
There were comments expressing understanding for both sides of the discussion.
Someone added that “I understand it as someone in the food industry,” but “as a human being I don’t.”
Others said she has the right to do whatever she wants with her money, so if that means buying something for a homeless man, that has no bearing on the company.
A barista handed a customer a cup of coffee through a drive-thru (stock image)
According to another comment left by @superheroeveryday2, she ended up buying the coffee and giving it to the homeless man anyway.
She posted a follow-up video with a Google Review comment to which The Copper Moon responded.
The comment reads: ‘Don’t understand why your employees claim that we as customers can’t buy things for the homeless here.’
The Copper Moon wrote back that a homeless person is stealing tips and “pooping on the sidewalk.”
“You don’t understand what led to this point.”