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Starbucks Worker Insisting Customers Wear Masks Rewarded With $70K On GoFundMe (washingtonpost.com) 331

"Masks are stupid and so are the people wearing them," posted one San Diego woman on Facebook (who is also an anti-vaxxer). "She has also shared previous posts expressing her refusal to wear masks, and her belief that those who wear them are 'not thinking clearly,'" reports the Washington Post.

Here's what happened next... Amber Lynn Gilles walked into a Starbucks in San Diego without a mask and was declined service, according to a Facebook post on her page. She took a photograph of the barista who didn't serve her... Her post backfired.

It quickly collected more than 100,000 reactions and comments, as well as nearly 50,000 shares. Many Facebook users defended the barista, Lenin Gutierrez, and some called Gilles a "Karen" — a name coined to describe an entitled white woman making inappropriate remarks. One Facebook user wrote: "There's no reason to publicly shame a kid who's trying to work his shift like any other day...." That's when Matt Cowan, a man who doesn't know Gutierrez but stumbled upon the post, decided to start a virtual tip jar for the barista on GoFundMe. Cowan called the donation page "Tips for Lenin Standing Up To A San Diego Karen..."

"Everybody is rallying around somebody for doing what they're supposed to do and trying to protect everyone else," Cowan said in an interview with KGTV. "It just goes to show you there are a lot of good people out there and that outweighs the bad...."

By Saturday the original Facebook post criticizing the Starbucks barista had brought him over $70,000 in donations through the GoFundMe campaign.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports, "In an interview with KNSD-TV Channel 7 in San Diego, Gilles said she's received 'thousands' of death threats since the post went live."
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Starbucks Worker Insisting Customers Wear Masks Rewarded With $70K On GoFundMe

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28, 2020 @02:42AM (#60236866)

    1. Good for the barista.

    2. Between the stereotyping "a Karen" and the feeling (maybe only imagined by me? I hope so) that someone is a little gleeful over the woman getting death threats, this seems like a really horrible story.

    • by tysonedwards ( 969693 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @03:31AM (#60236922)
      Karen - err, Amber - was claiming she was exempt from the mask requirement thanks to the first amendment, something she clearly did not understand. She then proceeded to try to sue Gutierrez for half of the proceeds for the GoFundMe campaign citing that it’s her involvement that caused his windfall. So... maybe she could benefit from learning that actions have consequences.
      • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @03:56AM (#60236978)

        Karen - err, Amber - was claiming she was exempt from the mask requirement thanks to the first amendment, something she clearly did not understand.

        She was also quoted as saying she has a medical exemption, but has not offered any proof that is true. Even if true, companies could still refuse her service as being Karen with a doctor's note is not a "protected class". :-)

        • She was also quoted as saying she has a medical exemption, but has not offered any proof that is true.

          yeah there is a flagrant lie going around social media that you can claim to have a medical exemption and then if asked for proof, refuse because they're not allowed to ask because HIPPA

          which is just a total lie, HIPPA defines processes and procedures that health care related businesses/agencies have to follow with respect to customer/client data, it in no way keeps regular Joe X from asking you whatever the frick he wants

          • being able to spell HIPAA correctly is the first step in understanding a very complicated series of laws (HIPAA Omnibus, HITECH). I'd take any comments about "HIPPA" with a huge grain of salt.

            If Joe X works at Starbucks and demands a record which includes PHI ( a name and a clinical diagnosis, for example) now starbucks is in possession of PHI and it may be argued they are a covered entity, subject to HIPAA obligations.

            That said you are absolutely correct about the social media campaigns and fake "mask

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @06:15AM (#60237266) Homepage Journal

          People have been carrying "Face Mask Exempt" cards too.

          https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]

          It's a really shitty thing to do. People with real disabilities get screwed over, staff who don't know the law and who have no practical way of determining if you really have a disability or not get exposed, other customers are put at risk.

          • short of being on oxygen. The point of face masks is to catch your droplets as you breath and cough. Even a very loose fitting one will do that. You don't need an N95 or the get up I wear.
        • She was also quoted as saying she has a medical exemption, but has not offered any proof that is true. Even if true, companies could still refuse her service as being Karen with a doctor's note is not a "protected class". :-)

          Man these people are wild. I really thought the legal-woo stuff started and ended with the "sovereign citizen" whackos, but apparently not.

          These guys carry cards around citing a law that says , uh, health insurance companies, aren't supposed to breach customers privacy and think it mean

      • Someone needs to tell the Karen that freeze peach isn't on Starbucks menu.

      • by Sique ( 173459 )
        Somehow I am reminded of an old joke:

        What are the three major problems of a Karen?

        • What do I wear today?
        • Where do I spend my next vacation?
        • How can I be different without anyone noticing?
    • 2. Between the stereotyping "a Karen" and the feeling (maybe only imagined by me? I hope so) that someone is a little gleeful over the woman getting death threats, this seems like a really horrible story.

      She has said she's going to sue the guy who started the GoFundMe campaign for defamation and slander and that she wants some of the money raised. So... sounds like a horrible person, finally getting what she deserves.

      • 2. Between the stereotyping "a Karen" and the feeling (maybe only imagined by me? I hope so) that someone is a little gleeful over the woman getting death threats, this seems like a really horrible story.

        She has said she's going to sue the guy who started the GoFundMe campaign for defamation and slander and that she wants some of the money raised. So... sounds like a horrible person, finally getting what she deserves.

        Well, he'll have a war-chest to ward off any hostile takeovers of the donations. I think the case would be dismissed pretty quickly. Looking at the Go Fund Me page, I see that it is organized by someone else, and sez...

        Raising money for Lenin for his honorable
        effort standing his ground when faced with a Karen in the wild

        (link to picture of Karen's OP) 49038268_1592879101222455_r.jpeg

        Please note that all donations made to this GoFundMe are considered to be personal gifts to Lenin Gutierrez.

      • I'm not in favour of extrajudicial executions (or even threats thereof), but otherwise it seems like she's a self-important git getting what self-important gits deserve, yes.

  • Amber Lynn Gilles walks into a Starbucks?
  • Next up (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @04:28AM (#60237052)

    A Slashdot story about a family reunited with their long lost cat.

    Seriously, this is not news and has no technical or other relation to the audience. There's literally no reason for anyone besides the people directly involved to be interested in this at all.

    • Amber is a senior internal bug hunter for Microsoft...

      (I kid, I kid)

    • A Slashdot story about a family reunited with their long lost cat.

      Seriously, this is not news and has no technical or other relation to the audience. There's literally no reason for anyone besides the people directly involved to be interested in this at all.

      It's an interesting case analysis of how humans rationalize certain things because "they want to" "talking heads say" "can't be bothered" "worldview", etc. Humans are rational animals: we can rationalize *anything* to fulfill our emotional needs.

      And how the hell does that cat find its way home? Scientists want to know.

  • This woman is well-known as a n'er-do-well'er in the San Diego area. She's an ignorant, unpleasant person and the news would be best off ignoring her.
  • If the store's policy or state law is that people wear a mask then people wear a mask or they GTFO. Maybe she (for stupid reasons) doesn't like wearing a mask but in that case she can sit her ass at home and make her own coffee.
  • So, whenever the subject gets brought up, and someone starts explaining to me about how wearing masks is "infringing my personal freedom" or whatnot, I ask them this question.

    Do you have the freedom to drive on both sides of the road?

    When they say no, I ask why not. And usually the response is, "I could kill someone, or die myself." So, I explain: When behaving as we choose endangers the lives of ourselves or others, it's wise not to exercise these so-called personal liberties. Instead, we need to estab

  • Would an anti mask crusader argue thus:

    Drinking is legal

    Driving is legal

    Driving while drunk is simply doing two legal activities simultaneously. As such police cracking down on DWI would violate first amendment.

    Further there is a tendency of many claiming "this is my right" "That is unconstitutional". Only the Courts can declare something unconstitutional. Even random people posting in Slashdot add I am not a lawyer. What makes these people think they are judges?

  • Two problems (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeRobe ( 207552 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @08:35AM (#60237614) Homepage

    I have two issues with this /. submission that are both editor-related. Sure, that customer was being a jerk, kudos to the barista for standing up to her, and I guess congrats for getting a random $75k+ windfall BUT:

    First, how is this news for nerds? Because it involves Covid? Is /. just turning into a general news aggregator? There's so much interesting tech/science news happening in the world, I wish /. would just stick to that.

    Second, there are 3 links in the summary. The two links to the actual news stories are paywalled, making them useless to the majority of users. The editors should be doing a tiny bit of extra works and linking to free stories (maybe in addition to the paywalled ones) that are easily found via google search:

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/s... [cbsnews.com]

    https://www.nbcsandiego.com/ne... [nbcsandiego.com]

    https://heavy.com/news/2020/06... [heavy.com]

    https://www.today.com/food/wom... [today.com]

    • by klui ( 457783 )

      Slashdot has become a politicized platform. Just look at all the articles that aren't really tech in nature but are more political leaning. This article, and another today about how to teach CompSci. These posts have a lot of replies while other articles like renaming javax namespace gets less than 50.

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