A Hialeah, Fla. Taco Bell employee was reportedly fired on Friday after refusing to serve an English-speaking customer two days before.
A video of the Spanish-speaking employee’s interaction with a customer who tried to place her order in English Wednesday evening quickly went viral on social media.
“No habla ingles!” Hialeah Taco Bell employee fired for refusing to take order from customer who doesn’t speak Spanish. Watch full video here: https://t.co/rp2Pjo6oc7 pic.twitter.com/XWXtU2hZHa
— WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) September 14, 2018
“Nobody here speaks English? Nobody in the back speaks English? So you can’t take my order,” customer Alexandria Montgomery said.
After getting nowhere trying to place her order, Montgomery tried to ask for a manager.
“She is in her house sleeping,” the employee — who the customer says identified herself as Luisa — said dismissively in Spanish, according to the Miami Herald.
“Honey, I have a car behind you,” she said before she closed the window.
“Can you move, please? I have an order behind you,” she said. “There is no one who speaks English. This is Hialeah, I’m sorry.” When Montgomery didn’t move her vehicle right away, the employee threatened to call police.
“Call the police! I didn’t do nothing! I’m trying to order food!” said the customer.
“It’s not my problem. It’s Hialeah,” the employee responded in Spanish.
“That doesn’t mean nothing!” Montgomery told the employee. “‘Cuz this is Hialeah.’ This is America. Y’all don’t take over the whole population.”
Hialeah is a 94 percent Latino community located north of Miami’s airport, according to Fox News. Approximately 89 percent of its residents speak Spanish.
“I’m trying to order and she’s telling me I can’t order because she doesn’t speak English. Who’s wrong?” Montgomery said before eventually leaving without being served.
“This incident happened Wednesday night around 10:30 p.m.,” she told El Nuevo Herald. “I contacted the manager and after explaining to her what happened all she did was apologize and say ‘thank you,’ and the call was disconnected.”
Taco Bell Corp. released two statements regarding the incident to El Nuevo Herald. One said that “this does not meet our customer service expectations,” adding that the company has “worked quickly to resolve with the customer to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
Another statement later confirmed: “This individual no longer works for the brand.”
Montgomery, who reportedly called the incident “racist” in a Facebook post, told NBC 6 the company offered her a $100 gift card.
“A gift card is not gonna just solve the problem, it’s not gonna give me justice,” Montgomery said. “Don’t try to like sweep it under the rug.”
“I understand everyone in Miami doesn’t speak English, and that’s fine, but if she was willing to work with me, I think the outcome would’ve been different,” she told NBC 6.
“Luisa isn’t even her real name lol. She was the general manager on that time,” Montgomery wrote on Facebook, according to NBC 6.