A San Diego Starbucks barista has received more than $60,000 in tips after a woman’s attempt to shame him for enforcing store’s mask policy backfired spectacularly.
According to People , Lenin Gutierrez refused to serve Amber Lynn Gilles because she wasn’t wearing a mask, inspiring the woman to turn to Facebook to blast the barista for his actions.
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However, that post ultimately saw an outpouring of support for Gutierrez and a viral GoFundMe campaign established for the employee who simply just trying to do his job.
In a since-deleted Facebook post, Gilles expressed her outrage at the events that occurred at the Starbucks location on June 22.
In addition to a photo she took of Gutierrez while at the store, the woman reportedly included this caption:
“Meet lenen [sic] from Starbucks who refused to serve me cause I’m not wearing a mask. Next time I will wait for cops and bring a medical exemption.”
Although the post did indeed go viral, it was Gutierrez who earned support from users online, not Gilles.
In fact, the post proved so popular that a GoFundMe campaign was established to raise money for the barista “or his honorable effort standing his ground when faced with a Karen in the wild.”
As of writing, that campaign has raised over $60,000 in donations, which organizer Matt Cowan said “are considered to be personal gifts to Lenin Gutierrez.”
Since going viral, Gutierrez himself has since spoken out to explain his side of the story.
In a Facebook video , he explained that while he was working the register, he saw the woman enter the store without a mask on, so he asked if she could wear one.
“She told me, ‘No. I don’t need one,’ ” he recalled. “I was going to show her the paper that we’ve been provided saying that we require face masks, but we can still help — but before I can say anything, she flips me off, she says, ‘No. I don’t need one.’ And she started cursing up a storm. She started calling people ‘sheep’ and she left.”
She then apparently returned to the store to ask Gutierrez his name, and to take the candid shot of him that appeared in her Facebook post.
“She took a photo of me and said, ‘I’m calling corporate,’ and started cursing some more at everyone, and just left, this time, for good,” he said.
“I thought that was going to be the end of it,” he added. “I didn’t know it was going to come to this.”
Before the coronavirus outbreak, Gutierrez was working as a dance teacher.
“With this donation that everyone provided me with GoFundMe, I can make these dreams reality,” he said. “I can fuel my passions even better now. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for it.”
He added, “It’s just amazing to see that I can actually make these dreams of pursuing more into dance a thing now. Thank you so much for it.”
