Coffee shop’s ‘Karen’ f iles suit

Woman who refused to wear a facial covering sues man who raised $100,000 for Starbucks barista in San Diego.

SAN DIEGO — Last year, a fundraising campaign made national news.

It started in June, when a San Diego Starbucks barista refused to serve a maskless customer. The customer snapped a photo of the barista and posted it on Facebook, saying that next time, she would “wait for cops.”

Her post went viral and inspired an Orange County man to create a GoFundMe campaign — not for the customer, but for the barista, Lenin Gutierrez.

The campaign, he wrote, was for Gutierrez’s “honorable effort standing his ground when faced with a Karen in the wild.”

The story made headlines. The call for tips raised $100,000 for the barista.

Now the customer, Amber Gilles, is suing the creator of the GoFundMe campaign, Matt Cowan. Allegations in the complaint, filed last week in San Diego Superior Court, include misappropriation of her name and likeness and invading privacy in a false light.

According to Gilles’ filing, she has lost online referrals as a yoga instructor and suffered “public scorn.” She has also received hate mail and death threats.

Cowan, reached Wednesday, said he is in talks with attorneys.

“Personally, I think that this is a baseless lawsuit, and that Amber is seeking to profit off the good deed that I did in arranging the fundraiser for Lenin in June of last year,” he said.

The suit does not specify an amount but seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as $750 for each violation of a California code barring certain uses of a person’s likeness without consent. Gilles’ attorney, Michael Harrington, said Thursday that his client is not asking for money from the barista, who is not a party to the suit.

The tale began in June, when Gilles posted the photo on her Facebook page with a message (misspelling the barista’s name): “Meet lenen from Starbucks who refused to serve me because I’m not wearing a mask. Next time, I will wait for cops and bring a medical exemption.”

Cowan saw the post and asked a friend who lived near the Clairemont Starbucks, where the incident occurred, to drop $10 in the tip jar for the barista.

Cowan said he started the GoFundMe as a way to get more money into the barista’s tip jar. His post included a screenshot from Gilles’ Facebook post.

More than $100,000 poured in. Cowan said he turned all of it (except fees and taxes) over to Gutierrez.

Shortly after the story exploded last summer, Gutierrez posted a video to say he had tried to explain the store’s mask policy to Gilles and offer a way to serve her, but Gilles cursed, called other customers “sheep” and left.

California requires the use of face coverings in public to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Gilles’ suit also targets the media company Cowan founded.

Both sides have turned to GoFundMe for legal fees.

Gilles’ page is titled “Redress Defamation of Character” and had raised nearly $6,000 as of Thursday afternoon.

Cowan’s page is titled “Help I’m being sued by a Karen for raising money” and had raised more than $21,000.