San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
S.F. cookie store roiled by racism, harassment charges
A familiar dispenser of sweets in the heart of the Castro, Hot Cookie is opening an internal investigation after employees took to social media Wednesday to accuse the owners of racial discrimination, sexual harassment and being dismissive of complaints from employees who are people of color, according to coowner Tony Roug.
In the social media post, staffers accused bakery coowner Paul Perretta of using “racially discriminatory” speech in the workplace, including “n—.” The post, which was shared between Instagram accounts and garnered more than 5,000 likes within 12 hours, also said Roug sexually assaulted employees.
The staffers called for negative Yelp reviews and a boycott of the San Francisco staple, which was founded in 1997 and is popular for its classic cookies. It also became an international tourist destination for baked goods cheekily named after body parts. Among the more popular items are the penis and venus cookies, with the former known by a vulgar name among some of the shop’s regulars in reference to its chocolate color and genital shape.
Hot Cookie is open during the pandemic, and its Yelp page is now being monitored after a flood of onestar reviews. (Yelp discourages reviews that are motivated by media coverage.)
Roug declined to address the specific allegations and said the Hot Cookie management team is opening an investigation into what had been described, a response to employees calling for a thirdparty human resources entity to facilitate a conversation between ownership and staff.
“At this point the only response from Hot Cookie is that we certainly want to create an environment free of sexual assault and racial discrimination,” Roug said.
“We’re totally on board with this change.”
The social media post features screenshots of emails between management and employees at Hot Cookie, including one from a manager at Hot Cookie who told an employee that the company was going to work to “improve communication channels between staff and management,” such as creating avenues for workers to share grievances and feedback. The email also said the company would work to make the workplace free of harassment and take “a more proactive approach towards diversity and equity with the staff.” Roug repeated these points in his conversation with The Chronicle.
But workers said in emails and on the Instagram post that management hasn’t acted quickly enough. Stella Gutierrez, a queer woman of color and the Hot Cookie employee who spearheaded the dialogue on social media, said more than 20 former and current Hot Cookie employees have shared stories with her alleging misconduct by the owners.
“While I can’t speak for everyone, I know that my goal is to see them step down from the company. I don’t want to see them as owners there anymore,” she said. “These people have been dismissive of our concerns for so long. Most of the workers there are people of color, and what they’re doing, how they’re just not listening, is a form of white supremacy.”
More workers in the food world are turning to social media, especially Instagram, to air grievances about work situations and employers. In some instances, the conversations have had an immediate impact: Earlier this year, after employees at the Bon Appetit test kitchen came forward about systemic issues around race, Editor inChief Adam Rapoport resigned.
Roug, though, said he never anticipated the conversations with his employees to spill onto social media. He called the response to the post, such as the Yelp reviews, “a classic case of everyone being triggered.”
“We’re kind of fascinated that four white gay men are being labeled as white supremacist. That’s a tag we never thought we would have been characterized with. It’s sad but we understand why it could happen since we’re a group of white owners,” Roug said. “For me personally, this is a good thing. It’s something that could get us all engaged.”