PLEASE, ME TOO

San Diego Woman Who Harassed Starbucks Barista About Face Masks Demands Half of $105,000 He Got on GoFundMe

Amber Lynn Gilles says people are encouraging “discrimination” by siding with the young barista who refused to serve her without a face mask.

Last month, a San Diego woman’s Facebook post attempting to shame a Starbucks barista for demanding she wear a face mask backfired spectacularly when internet users instead rallied around the barista—even launching a GoFundMe that netted him $105,000 in “tips.” Now, however, the woman, Amber Lynn Gilles, says she wants half the money and has even contacted lawyers about it. Gilles, a 34-year-old self-proclaimed anti-vaxxer, says she was the victim in the encounter with barista Lenin Gutierrez, who refused to serve her unless she wore a mask, per company policy. “It was discrimination and everybody is okay with it and enabling and rewarding that behavior,” she told a local news station. She claimed medical exemption from wearing a mask, per a note from an unnamed chiropractor and a 2015 pelvic exam for ovarian cysts. She said she had several preexisting conditions but that, ultimately, a mask “doesn’t even work.” Public health experts largely agree that face coverings do work. She declined to offer Gutierrez an apology and has started her own GoFundMe after finding that lawyers were too expensive to take on her cause.