7-11 Employee Fired for Letting Homeless Man Have Coffee Worth $1
by Richard Rowe
It's
hard to say whether or not Massachusetts 7-11 owner Romany Youseff
qualifies as a conservative; maybe he just picked up a bit of Putin,
culturally. But if he's not, then he sure did a fine job of imitating
one when he fired a clerk for giving a freezing homeless man a $1 cup of coffee.
It
was a cold night in Salem -- according to 19-year-old clerk Ava Lins,
it was one of the coldest nights in a very cold month. On her shift at
Youseff's store, Lins met a man (who has since been identified as
homeless), who walked in shaking, seeking temporary refuge from the
cold.
Lins
offered him a small cup of hot coffee, valued at about a dollar.
According to Lins, Youseff entered the store just as the man was
leaving, grabbed his jacket and put the irons to him.
"Did
you pay for this? Did you pay for this?" He screamed at the man. Lins
lied for him and said he did. Upon further interrogation, Youseff
uncovered the horrifying truth that Lins had, in fact, given away a
dollar's worth of coffee. She was off the schedule (translation: fired)
the very next day, very nearly putting her in need of a cup of coffee
herself. She later told Salem's News Center 5:
"I
have about $10 to my name." Her electricity and phone were about to be
shut off, she told the news agency. She suspects that the firing had
less to do with the fact that she gave the coffee away, and more to do
with the fact that she had requested a few Sundays off -- a request
protected by state law.
Following the public backlash after News Center 5's coverage,
including barrages of angry phone calls and messages, "hard-working
small-businessman" Youseff suddenly found himself with a renewed streak
of compassion, and hired Lins back. He said:
"I don't have any problem. I told her it's OK. Everyone forget it. It's OK."
Yes, everyone forget it.
Forget it.
This
is not the creep you're looking for. And his home phone number is not
1-978-532-5148. You will not call Youseff at 3:18 a.m. to let him know
how we do things in America these days.
Watch News Center 5's coverage of the story in the video below:
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