DENVER – The owner of a Dazbog Coffee franchise took to Facebook Monday to apologize for an incident detailed in another Facebook post.
Keegan Zimmerman, who works in an office near the Dazbog Coffee on the 16th Street Mall, says he was walking nearby on Monday when he saw a man in an electronic wheelchair.
"His wheelchair was going pretty slow," Zimmerman said. "I said what can I do to help and he said he needed a charge."
Zimmerman pushed the man to the closest building, the coffee shop. He approached the counter and asked the clerk if the man could plug his wheelchair in to an outlet.
At first, Zimmerman said the clerk indicated the store didn't have an outlet, but Zimmerman found one. The clerk still refused to allow it and Zimmerman said he continued to ask why.
"He finally said you have to buy something," Zimmerman said. "And I said, 'that's fine. You guys are being d--ks. But that's fine. I'll have a small coffee.'"
"He said, 'no, you have to leave because you called us that.'"
Zimmerman said he got mad and asked to see the manager. He said the manager refused to even come to the counter.
"I said, 'come on dude; come out and look at this,'" Zimmerman said. "He said, 'No, you called us d--ks. It's no longer diplomatic. Get out of our store.'"
"I said 'come out here; assess the situation and tell us you're not being a d--ks.'"
The manager refused. So Zimmerman took the man next door to the lobby of an office building and charged the chair.
He then posted his whole experience on Facebook. Within hours, the Dazbog coffee chain responded on its Facebook page:
Hey all, today we had a mishap. I apologize for what happened this afternoon, the actions taken by my employees were wrong. They have been admonished. And disciplined. Again, we apologize for what happened today.
Dazbog's corporate arm, which does not actually own the store responded with this statement to 9News:
We were very disappointed to learn that a person in a wheelchair was not accommodated appropriately at the Dazbog store on 16th St. Even though we do not own that store, our company name is on it and we are very sorry that the employee in that store did not show appropriate courtesy in helping him. We apologize, once again, and hope that he will feel comfortable in returning to our stores in the future.
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