A Smoothie King employee has been fired after calling an Asian customer ‘Jackie Chan’ on his receipt.
The customer, who is Korean, was visiting a store of the smoothie franchise with his children earlier in the week (June 3) when the racist incident occurred.
Instead of asking for his name as would usually be the case, the employee penned the name of the Hong Kong born martial artist and actor onto the order and printed it on the receipt.
The customer, Tony Choi, took to social media to inform his followers what had just happened to him in the store in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Mr Choi wrote:
I was just in this Smoothie King with my kids. Instead of asking for my name. Zack H. thought it would be funny to put ‘Jackie Chan’ as my name.
Being Korean, I find this very insulting. But the 3 employees working there at the time couldn’t stop laughing about it.
I experience racism here and there and usually doesn’t bother me. Today I left this store furious on the inside, trying to not let my young kids know what just happened
PLEASE SHARE THIS:I was just in this Smoothie King with my kids. Instead of asking for my name. Zack H. thought it…
Posted by Tony Choi on Sunday, 2 June 2019
Shockingly, this isn’t the only racist incident to happen at a Smoothie King store in the past week; as per South China Morning Post, another incident came to light on Sunday (June 2) when a customer responded to the chain on Twitter with a picture of a store receipt with the word ‘n*****’ on it.
The tweet is no longer available but the woman wrote, alongside the offending picture, ‘Do I have to be called the N-word for the discount?’
The pictured receipt for a ‘Hulk Strawberry’ drink showed the customer space was filled with the words, ‘n***** – to go’.
Hey @SmoothieKing can we talk about this real quick ???? pic.twitter.com/V9LE3x2yIT
— 🏁Easy Magazine 🏁 (@EasyMagCLT) June 2, 2019
The franchise company, based in Dallas, confirmed the two employees who were responsible for the receipts have both lost their jobs. Both employees worked at separate stores in Charlotte.
In a statement provided to South China Morning Post, a spokesperson for the smoothie chain wrote:
We have zero tolerance for any action where a guest is disrespected and we have taken immediate and decisive action.
The company also confirmed it was closing the two stores where the incidents occurred ‘until the franchisees and their respective teams complete further training on our standards and to ensure that nothing like this occurs again’.
Smoothie King is still investigating the incidents, with all of its 1,000+ stores receiving more training about ‘inclusivity policies and best practices’ in the near future.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).