After being accused of racially profiling a black couple during their wedding proposal, several Angry Orchard employees are now former Angry Orchard employees.
People reports that unlike President Nincompoop, owners of the brewery want no parts of being affiliated with racist behavior. In a statement, Angry Orchard announced that they’d fired a manager and replaced members of its security team.
From People:
“We reached out and spoke directly with the guest involved to express our sincerest apology and offered to make it right,” Angry Orchard said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. “We badly mishandled the situation and our team overreacted.”
“We’re extremely embarrassed this happened and have taken the immediate steps to remove the manager who was on-duty from her role and replace members of the security team.”
On Sunday, Cathy-Marie Hamlet gave her friends and family the rundown on how one of the greatest days of her life was ruined by racial profiling.
“A group of 8 of us went there to enjoy an afternoon with some hard cider. My boyfriend walked me out to an empty table on the lawn, and before we could sit down, a young lady from security approached us and said to him, ‘I’m sorry sir, but I have to check your back pocket. I was told that you stole a T-shirt from the gift store,’” Hamlet wrote in a lengthy Facebook post.
She added, “My boyfriend then emptied all of his pockets, while still trying to keep the ring box hidden from my sight. She then walked away, and my boyfriend and I sat down at the table and he began his proposal speech. MID PROPOSAL, the same young lady from security walks back towards and says to me, ‘I’m sorry, I need to check your bag. I was told that he gave it to you, and you put it in your bag.’”
For their part, Angry Orchard promises that “everyone on our team, from cidermakers to security” will receive “additional training in the areas of security awareness and unconscious bias to prevent something like this from happening in the future.”
“We’re deeply sorry that our guests were mistreated,” their statement to People continued. “The situation doesn’t reflect our values of respect for all and creating a welcoming environment for all our guests.”
This sounds all well and good but can’t erase the degradation that Hamlet and her beau suffered.
“I have never been so humiliated in my life,” Hamlet wrote on Facebook. “Myself and some of my friends left Angry Orchard in tears. On what was supposed to be one of the best days of my life, I was chased out of Angry Orchard by security who followed us all the way to the parking lot.”
‘Merica, ladies and gentlemen.