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Smoothie King row update: Michigan employee under fire for refusing service to Trump supporter; company responds | Video
Two employees at an Ann Arbor Smoothie King "are no longer with the business" after allegedly refusing service to a man wearing clothes with Trump's name on it.
Two employees at an Ann Arbor Smoothie King "are no longer with the business" after they allegedly refused service to a couple because the husband was wearing clothes with President Donald Trump's name on it, the company has said. Smoothie King responded after a woman alleged that she and her husband were refused service because he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with Trump's name on it.
A video of the incident doing the rounds on social media shows a verbal disagreement between the couple and an employee of a Smoothie King location on Jackson Road. The employee, identified by X account Leftism as Janiyah Mishelle Williams of Ann Arbor, Michigan, tells the couple to leave.
HT.com has not independently verified the identity of the employee.
The employee in the video argues that they have the right to refuse, saying the company “doesn’t support that.” “We’re not really comfortable with that,” she says.
The employee also mentions Trump “starting a war yesterday,” referring to the US and Israel’s strikes on Iran.
GoFundMe launched
Leftism said that the employee made a GoFundMe, in which she “boasts about refusing to serve Trump supporters, and claims that she was filmed without permission, is a minor, and now has a lot of hate comments.”
In the GoFundMe, which was later disabled, the employee wrote, per The Detroit News, "refused service to trump supporters, who recorded me as a minor without permission, after they posted the video it got hundreds of hate comments and threats making the job no longer safe to return to."
Meanwhile, Leflism added in its X post about the employee, “She also posted videos doubling on what she did, saying that "this is good vs evil, we need to stand up," and is calling for people to report the original video on Facebook, claiming that it was "taken without permission" and takes issue with a lot of the commenters being white.”
Smoothie King responds
Smoothie King took to X to respond to the incident, asserting that their stores “are a place free of discrimination of any kind, where every guest and team member is treated with care and respect.
“Following an investigation into an incident involving a guest who was refused service at a franchised location in Michigan yesterday, the franchise owner has taken immediate action and the two employees involved are no longer with the business. Both the franchise owner and Smoothie King corporate have reached out to the guest several times to apologize and will continue to follow up. The local owner is also taking further action and enforcing mandatory retraining for all employees that outlines our guest experience standards,” wrote the company.
