00:00The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into a Brooklyn coffee shop after it
00:04essentially banned Congressman Dan Goldman over his support for Israel.
00:08Poetica Coffee, a small local coffee shop in Park Slope, found itself on the national stage
00:13after it said it would have refused to serve the New York Democrat had staff recognized him.
00:18But since he picked up his order unnoticed, Poetica went ahead and refunded his purchase
00:22just to prove their point. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dillon said federal law prohibits
00:27places of public accommodation from discriminating based on race, religion, or national origin
00:32and said the Civil Rights Division is reviewing the matter. The shop's actions sparked a political
00:36firestorm with supporters calling it protest and critics arguing it may have crossed a legal line.
00:42Now federal officials will determine whether the incident warrants further enforcement action.
00:47And this isn't the first time this particular coffee shop or those associated with it have
00:51lashed out at Israel. The founder regularly engages in comment threads under posts about
00:56Israel or the horrors committed by Hamas, in which some of them he appears to justify the terrorist
01:03group's atrocities on October 7th, 2023. In one response to a video posted by UN Secretary
01:08General Antonio Guterres, Poetica's founder posted, quote, Israel is the Nazi Germany of current time.
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