Oakland Coffee Shop Refuses To Serve Police Officers

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A coffee shop in Oakland is making news for its customer service guidelines. Hasta Muerte Coffee refuses to serve cops in a controversial act that’s opening more dialogue about police-community relations.

Oakland Sgt. Robert Trevino walked into the cafe last month and was promptly informed that cops aren’t welcome in the establishment, according to SFGate.com.

Trevino is president of the Alameda, Calif. chapter of the Latino Peace Officers Association and generally works in the neighborhood where the cafe is located. It’s unclear if Trevino was there for coffee or if he simply wanted to introduce himself.

“Knowing him personally, he highly values community policing and he’s known as going out and building relationships with merchants,” Sgt. Bryan Hubbard, vice president of the Police Officers’ Association said.

Nonetheless, Hubbard respects the company’s decision. “I think their position is very clear that they don’t want the police in there, and I can respect that,” said Hubbard. “If they do call the police for any need, we’re going to respond professionally and give them the same level of service as anyone else regardless of their position.”

After learning about the policy, Sgt. Barry Donelan reached out to Haste Muerte writing that he was both surprised and concerned by their refusal to serve cops, in part because “Oakland Police Officers work tirelessly every day to serve the residents of our City.”

“I have never heard of Police Officers being refused service by an Oakland business,” Donelan reportedly wrote.

In response, Haste Muerte posted a message on Instagram explaining that the policy was put in place for the “physical and emotional safety of our customers and ourselves.”

“Cop supporters are trying to publicly shame us online with low reviews because this particular police visitor was Latino,” reads the message. “He [Trevino] broadcasted to his network that he was ‘refused service’ at a local business and now the rumblings are spreading.

“We know in our experience working on campaigns against police brutality that we are not alone saying that police presence compromises our feeling of physical [and] emotional safety,” the post continues. “There are those that do not share that sentiment — be it because they have a friend or relative who is a police [officer], because they are white or have adopted the privileges whiteness affords, because they are home — or business-owning, or whatever the particular case may be. If they want to make claims about police being part of the community, or claims that race trumps the badge [and] gun when it comes to police, they must accept that the burden of proof for such a claim is on them.”

The statement adds, “[OPD’s] recent attempts to enlist officers of color and its short term touting of fewer officer involved shootings does not reverse or mend its history of corruption, mismanagement, and scandal, nor a legacy of blatant repression.”

The cafe, which opened last year and doubles as a bookstore, is about a mile away from where Oscar Grant was shot and killed by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer on New Years Day in 2009.

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