The Chipped Cup, an independent coffee shop in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of New York, has found itself in the middle of a social media clash with a (now former) regular customer. On Thursday, the irate patron took to Facebook and Twitter to express her unhappiness with a pro-marriage equality message written on a sidewalk sandwich board by the manager of the shop (who is pictured above).
Here are the former customer's messages, according to DNAinfo, :
"You just lost two local customers with your political sandwich board," a person listed as Leesa Dahl wrote on the coffee shop's Facebook page. "We were so happy when you joined the neighborhood and were faithful, but alienating the majority of the population is a really irritating and dumb move. We will encourage others not to patronize your business."
On Twitter, Dahl, who lists herself as a pianist in the opera world, wrote: "It's too bad @ChippedCupNY discriminates against 98% of their customer base by being H8ful!"
Dahl told DNAinfo what bothers her about the pro-marriage equality sign is that the shop is "pushing a political agenda to customers." Grub Street New York alleges that Dahl also dropped the f-bomb in a tweet to The Chipped Cup, a message that has since been deleted.
The owner of The Chipped Cup is 33-year-old Andrew Ding who sums up the controversy perfectly: "It's a sign on a sandwich board about equality. How anyone can turn that into something about hate is beyond me."