how is an allergy a disability?
This whole title reads like a joke.
Because people believe it is and they believe they should be catered to.
I’m guessing because it fits the definition as laid out by the Americans with Disabilities Act?
Kind of like that section that every law has in order to avoid stupid questions like this?
this only makes sense if they’re making like 3x in profits over normal dairy.
Could someone with lactose intolerance not merely omit the milk?
I mean that limits you to just straight black. no latte, cappuccino, nothing
not against black coffee, but that’s not why people go to starbies
I mean, this could apply very easily to a steakhouse too and vegetarians. Vegetarians would be limited to just salads and sides, but those aren’t why people go to a steakhouse.
That would be an actual reasonable accommodation in this case.
Why not? I would charge more.
Who is actually doing the suing here? If it’s the ADA themselves then this is a mockery and it makes the ADA look like a joke. I’m lactose intolerant. Being lactose intolerant it is not medically necessary to not drink milk. I can drink milk. I can eat cheese, yogurt, etc. If I think about it, I take a little pill that has lactase in it to help. If I don’t then I get diarrhea and then I move on with my life. Not to mention, nobody is forcing you to go to Starbucks. If you don’t want to drink milk and you don’t want to pay extra, then don’t go to Starbucks. I know that’s a hard concept for some to understand but you have free will. You can break free from the clutches of capitalism. I absolutely hate Starbucks and haven’t been to one since 2012 and even I think this lawsuit is frivolous.
Edit: after reading your comments I see everyone’s point. With that being said, wouldn’t pizza places that charge more for gluten-free crust fall under the same category?
While I understand and agree with a lot of what you say, the idea that you can just go somewhere else doesn’t fly. The same argument can be used to justify shops without handicapped accessible doorways, or restaurants where smoking is allowed. After all, you can just go somewhere else…
That’s not how the ADA works. You could say the same for wheelchair ramps, but ultimately it’s on the store owner to reasonably provide accomodations to people who want to use their services. It’s not on the disabled person to pick and select who will accommodate them or not. It’s why businesses are required to reserve a portion of their parking lot to those with handicap placards. It shouldn’t be up to each disabled person to figure out which business they can go to.
What Starbucks is doing would be akin to Walmart charging an extra buck for you to use one of their mobility scooters or an extra $5 if you require the assistance from an employee because you can’t reach something.
Lactose intolerance is not a disability.
You cant sue Five Guys because you have a peanut allergy and they didn’t provide you a safe peanut free environment.
You can’t sue McDonald’s because they don’t have a non dairy cheese replacement for your cheeseburger.
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But a latte is a dairy based product, the non dairy cheaper alternative would be coffee. As the non dairy cheaper alternative of a cheeseburger is to remove the cheese.
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ADA doesn’t care about cheaper, watching the movie with no dialogue is cheaper than giving a closed captioning box to deaf people, but theaters still have to do it. The standard is undue burden. Starbucks is going to have a hard time claiming it’s going to bankrupt them if they can’t charge extra for oat milk.
Black coffee and a latte are not the same product just because they both are coffee-based drinks. A latte doesn’t use brewed coffee at all, it uses espresso shots, and thus is mostly milk, not coffee. If you ordered a latte and got a cup of black coffee, that doesn’t even come close to what you ordered, unlike your hamburger/cheeseburger analogy where only the cheese of the difference
Either way, Starbucks does provide a non-dairy alternative for their latte however already: oat milk, almond milk, and soy milk, but they charge for those alternatives and that is where the issue is.
If they did not provide alternatives at all, or if they did not charge extra, there would be no issue. They either would have to remove the alternative options, which would reduce choice for everyone, or provide an alternative at no additional cost, which only eats into their massive profit margins a tiny bit. At wholesale bulk amounts like they buy, the cost difference is negligible for the product, and the markup on that substitution is insane.
Unless they claim to have an allergen-free kitchen.
I don’t know the ins and outs of the ADA, but I disagree with your analogy. What Starbucks is doing is akin to Walmart charging a different price for milk and oat milk, which I don’t think anyone would say is not allowed. It’s not like there’s a sheet of lactose you have to walk through to get into a Starbucks or anything, there’s just things on the menu that people with some food allergies can’t order.
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I think you’re missing the big picture.
Just because one can choose not to go to Starbucks doesn’t relieve Starbucks of the requirement to provide equal access and provide equitable services to those with a disability or medical limitation.
Just because you are lactose intolerant and can handle things with with some milk products doesn’t mean that everyone with lactose intolerance can. There can be those that have much more severe reactions.
There are also those that truly cannot have diary at all. People have full blown milk allergies where if they ingest diary they could have anaphylaxis shock.
Making accomodations for equitable products/services for a medical disability cannot cost extra to the disabled person.
I don’t think it means that all non-dairy creamers necessarily need to be available for free. It only means that one does. Whatever non-dairy creamer is likely the cheapest.
Would they be in violation of the act if they did not offer these alternatives at all?
Stop giving these greedy corporations money. There’s other alternatives for your coffee fix.
I don’t think that this will mean that all non-dairy creamers would have to be given for free.
It would only mean that one non-dairy creamer would be. Oat, almond, soy milk are probably the more expensive types of non-dairy creamers.
They already offer a dairy free option: black coffee. I’m not sure that would solve the problem.
Brewed coffee and espresso are not the same beverage and cannot be substituted for one another.
Most of Starbucks drinks are primarily milk with 2-3 espresso shots. By weight, they sell milk with coffee flavor.
I used to drink brewed coffee, now I effectively drink Americanos (at home I use a areopress). And anyone who stays at my place, that’s what they’re getting, and I’ve never had a complaint. In fact it’s usually compliments. So I’m not sure I agree.
However, I think I wasn’t clear about my point. I’m just saying they already provide a non dairy alternative so providing a single one for free either doesn’t meet the desires of this lawsuit, or the lawsuit will fail because it already exists.
I absolutely agree that Starbucks is mostly milk. So maybe you’re right and that will make the difference.
I despise Starbucks, but I’m not sure this lawsuit makes any sense. Those non-cow milks costs them more. Of course, the law often doesn’t make sense, anyway.
As another commenter said, they could just overcharge for cow milk and make the prices all the same. Then nobody is happy, but it meets the legal requirement (as I understand it).
Those non-cow milks costs them more.
so? it’s starbucks. they’ll be fine.
Good margins is why they’re fine.
Those non-cow milks costs them more.
so? it’s starbucks. they’ll be fine.
Great logic, but that means every coffee shop everywhere would have to cover the additional costs of being “compliant”.
As someone who can’t eat gluten, I’d love this.
I get bread equivalents made with tapioca and rice yet somehow that shit is charged at a premium
at firehouse subs a gluten free roll costs +$1.50, they don’t even prepare it separately from normal bread and use all the same tools for it (except for not cutting it) so it’s not actually properly gluten-free, it’s almost certainly contaminated with gluten.
jersey mikes also charges +$1.50 (medium) to +$3.00 (large) to get gluten-free bread, but at least they have to go through a whole ritual to prepare it where they use COMPLETELY different tools and gloves and stuff, and it is generally actually non-contaminated unless, you specify that it’s not for allergies.
source: i worked at both firehouse subs and jersey mikes before, i fucking hated when people ordered gluten-free at jersey mikes but i always did it as required obviously. i didn’t actually ever charge extra to people who were getting gluten free because i didn’t know that was an option on the cash register at first lol, but even after i learned i just forgot / didn’t care enough to do it. some people were really grateful and thanked me after seeing me go through an entire process to make sure the gluten-free sub had no gluten on it
Dude, I hear you. Trust me, I HATE being the sensitive tummy guy, but I hate alternating fits of constipation and turd monsoons for 72 hours even more.
I always try to say mine is a sensitivity as opposed to an actual allergy and just to make a good faith effort. FWIW my friends who are full blown celiac just don’t eat out unless it’s a dedicated GF facility.
My feelings on gf being trendy are mixed: in some cases some karens downplay the seriousness but at the same time, having more awareness leads to more options… like Jersey Mike’s having gf bread. I had no idea before this
It’s not charged at a premium, it costs more to produce and deliver.
The entire process needs to be completely seperated from wheat flour. And the production numbers are lower, so all fixed costs need to be distributed over a lower number of sales units.I have a friend in the food industry who explained the costs and issues to me. They’ve seen people go into anaphylactic shock because of mis-prepared foods. The amount of work that goes into foods for people who have allergies or celiac is exponentially higher. Not only is there just figuring out how to make, say, bread look and taste like bread along with having similar nutritional qualities, all of the ingredients used in that preparation have to individually be verified to not be contaminated with any of the ingredients that someone might have a problem with. For instance, some flours might be gluten-free, but have a soy additive for thickening that you wouldn’t think to look for because it’s flour…who would add soy to it? But selling a gluten-free cupcake that you haven’t verified is soy-free to someone with a reaction to soy could potentially kill them.
It’s a really big deal.
So that’s why allergen and gluten-free foods cost so much more. I’m not saying there isn’t a premium added because they can, but the additional safeguards in production of foods like this has a price.
but it is still a violation of the ADA to add that for the accomidation of the disability. Also, in a sain world built for people, we would not charge extra for providing the safe guards needed to not kill people.
Not to mention that you have to prepare and store it in an entirely different area. Otherwise you have to completely scrub the same area to try and prevent cross contamination and probably special air filtration systems to keep flour out of the air. I had a coworker tell me she got anaphylaxis once over an apple getting small amounts of flour on it. It is almost better to get pre-made from another company where it comes sealed and serve it that way.
I feel for people with severe food allergies. I thankfully only have a severe cat allergy, but I had a friend with a soy allergy. He refused to eat out as most employees either don’t know, will have to spend 10+ minutes trying to read every single label, or will misunderstand and say it doesn’t anyways. If we were cooking for him, we could at least check or show him all of the ingredients beforehand.
I’ve been getting Lactaid ads alllllll over the Internet since reading that article.
Guess there is a new advertiser site that needs blocking …
Use firefox and ublock origin, and all that ends. I haven’t seen an ad in a decade.
Yeah, Firefox and ublock. Plus privacy badger, and Blokada5.
Still got me somehow. The ad showed up in an app, not a browser. Updated/added more blocklists.
EDIT: You were right! Get a gold star for that one. The Lemmy app I use was still set to open links itself, not the default browser. I forgot I’d changed it when I used Sync, but not when I switched to Connect! I still had many ads blocked because of the VPN.
Pihole might help?
Yup, got that too for my home network. Though I suspect several advertisers have gotten wise and hard coded different DNS into their programs. I don’t see the requests I think I should on some devices. There is not a lot of troubleshooting when it comes to IPv6 and while there are many AAAA queries on my server, there are a higher percentage on the server I set up for my parents.
But every lactose intolerant person I know drinks milk and eats ice cream almost in spite of themselves, they don’t even consider lactaid.
O…kay?
I mean I exclusively use lactaid brand ice cream and milk, it’s pretty good. And I do take lactaid sometimes when I eat some dairy, but it’s not like a perfect fix, it helps so that I don’t want to die, but like dairy still hurts, so I avoid it. When I can.
Can’t access the site, but isn’t non-dairy milk often more expensive?
Dairy is ludicrously subsidized, and as such cheaper than it really should be.
And that changes what?
I don’t think that it is. At least the soy milk I sometimes drink is cheaper than the organic cows milk my wife drinks. Oat probably is more expensive.
Reminds of how back in the day, few places had veg options but would often have a bean version that was cheaper than the meat version cool. Now? Restaurants will have less bean options but have an Impossible meat option that’s more expensive than meat 🙄
Because of government subsidies, yes.
Nope, capitalism
State capitalism.
To produce? No
As sold? Yes
Prediction: Starbucks resolves the issue by raising all “milk” product prices to match the most expensive option.
Lol why wouldn’t they. I would.
If I had to change my burgers and fries prices at my burger joint so they are the same price as vegan burgers and non-peanut oil, I’d just raise the prices of everything to the new floor.
Because the reality people are shitty and they are going to claim the accommodation whether they have the “disability” or not.
And then they blame it on the lawsuit.
This person capitalisms
Eww! No I don’t! Take it back!
lol wut
The plaintiffs say in the lawsuit that lactose intolerance is a disability listed under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the surcharges violate that act.
Is it though? I mean don’t get me wrong, it sucks that people who are lactose intolerant have to pay more, but is it really a disability?
The issue with the ADA is that it does not specify what counts as a disability, rather it gives an explanation of what is considered a disability. This leads to endless confusion and to court cases exactly like this, which are leveraging the text of the ADA as it stands to make their point.
The lawyer quoted in the article is correct, considering they already accommodate people with diabetes without surcharge, it can be argued the same courtesy needs to be extended to the lactose intolerant, who do not have a “choice” in whether they can consume dairy.
Because they cannot just consume dairy like other customers, the lawyer is arguing that no longer charging for the difference is a “reasonable accomodation” to the fact that their clients bodies cannot process dairy. That definitely rises to the same level of reasoning for those who suffer diabetes, in my opinion.
Anyway, that’s the frustrating thing about a lot of the ADA. It basically requires people who don’t know if their unique position qualifies them to spend a lot of money on lawyers up-front just to find out if the courts will actually accept that as true. It’s really well fucked because most disabled people don’t have money to be pissing away on such a legal project. Most of them are busy just trying to survive. In other words, most of the time you have to hope a lawyer will take up your case pro-bono.
Source: My cancer isn’t cancery or debilitating enough to count as a disability, even though “cancer” is in the list on the ADA website.
I got a disability lump sum for temporary disability due to a nerve disorder. It was based on my previous income and the percentage of time an expert judge I was able to work. (20% according to the expert.)
I only for $14,000 for 3 years of being disabled.
The disorder is now managed with medication, incidentally.
This leads to endless confusion and to court cases exactly like this, which are leveraging the text of the ADA as it stands to make their point.
That’s how common-law systems are designed to work, though (along with delegation to regulators in the executive branch). You can’t really expect the legislature to think through every single nuance and corner-case a-priori, right?
Yeah like if they had a mega list of every disability they could think of, but forgot one, or a new one is discovered, what happens in court? Said new/forgotten disability wouldn’t legally be a disability.
Oh of course, but I was speaking of people who are seriously disabled (not just people with lactose intolerance) and that severely impacts their ability to just go out and get a lawyer to fight for their rights.
Like, the lactose intolerant, I’m pretty okay with them needing to come up with the money to prove it in court. Lactose intolerance may be considered a disability, but it doesn’t rise to the level of disability that makes it hard to hold a job.
However, a lot of other people are stuck, shit out of luck, unable to work, hell, often unable to move, and they’re still fighting for their problems to be recognized as a disability. Further, even with a disability that’s accepted as a disability, you still have to go to court and fight, often for years, to get a disability recognized. You’re not allowed to work while you’re waiting for that classification. It’s just a bad system for it.
The common-law system is fine and good, but we’re all aware of how it’s absolutely tilted in favor of people who have money and against those who don’t.
I am allergic to milk. If I ingest it I will die full stop. Food allergies should be considered as a disability in this case because if I wanted coffee with soy milk I shouldn’t be made to pay extra for something out of my control. That being said since my allergies are severe enough I don’t eat anything I don’t make myself so this wouldn’t impact me anyway but I agree with the principle of the case.
What if the dairy substitute was 10x the cost of real milk, I know it isn’t, but what if it were. Or even 100x, just for argument. Are you entitled to get that for the same price?
If it does, then the cost difference to the business should probably be subsidized / written off in taxes.
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If you adhere to that philosophy, then why not adhere to the fact that there are other coffee shops customers can take their business and let the better shop who can achieve cheaper rates for alternative milks win as opposed to imposing a price control?
This isn’t Healthcare where shopping around isn’t an option, and it isn’t a niche thing where there isn’t competition.
Shit I’m all for strong market regulations, but this might be a tad too far and ignorant to business ownership – especially one where we seek new entrepreneurs and not mega companies who can afford teams of lawyers.
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Well no shit, but the obvious questions hanging over us are: 1) Does this apply to the letter of the law, or the spirit; and second to that 2) should such a law exist? 3) Why are you invoking double-standards for business competition when arguably coffee shops who don’t meet a competitive price-point for a non-essential item will lose? I say again what was clearly deflected: a) this is not a situation where consumers cannot shop around, and b) this is not a niche service that cannot be found elsewhere.
If you want markets whatsoever and thriving small-businesses, this is the kind of shit that as an aggregation cripples competition with mega-corporations
Because no one has ever made an unjust law, right?
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So here is how this goes just so you know.
Now all of the drinks go up in price so that the charge is just absorbed by the other customers.
The business makes no less money, hell they probably make more profit now and now everyone has to pay extra.
Yeah of course, that’s so unfair to tell business people that they can’t overcharge people
Can you demonstrate that they are overcharging? Have you calculated the costs? Did you include the extra refrigeration space required, the wholesale cost of bulk milk in non-consumer packaging versus milk alternatives likely purchased by the case in consumer packaging? Do their distributors charge more for milk alternatives because they represent a lower volume than traditional milk.
Lactose intolerance is actually normal. It’s tolerance to lactose as an adult that is biologically unusual, and mostly unique to westerners. Because most of us continue eating dairy products after infancy, we continue being able to digest them. However other cultures don’t continue consuming dairy after infancy, and thus lose their ability to digest it effectively.
It’s a really tough argument to claim it as a disability. I don’t see this case going well for the plaintiffs.
Adult lactose digestion (called lactase persistence) has evolved a few times from various mutations — one that happened in Europe, and several in Africa and the Middle East. It’s not caused in individuals by continued consumption.
That’s a super weird point of view. If your argument is wrt global averages and your view of normal is black hair, brown eyes, and some average between average Chinese and Indian populations, I suppose you’re right…but not in a way that’s remotely useful.
So you’re saying that I am disabled because I can drink milk?
Oh and just to clarify I don’t drink milk that shit is disgusting, but I can.
Even if it isn’t, I’d prefer a world where people aren’t shitting their pants or leaving toxic fart clouds in their wake because they need to save .50 on a coffee.
Gluten free up charge is a thing everywhere and Starbucks is so overpriced that I go to a gas station for the occasional cup of to go coffee I get and there’s no real dairy anywhere there.
I’m lactose intolerant but even I think this is absurd. What about every other food allergy in existence? Should substitutions cost the same even if the ingredients don’t? Furthermore, we’re talking about a splurge item from a coffee shop. You can still make coffee at home or buy coffee without milk in it.
Well the ADA only requires ‘reasonable’ accommodations. So I guess the logic of this case would be that if the substitution only costs a little bit more than the original ingredient then they should offer it at the same price. But this would still allow for business to charge extra when making the substitution would be ‘unreasonably’ expensive.
Therein lies the rub as what one person considers reasonable another might not. Charging 1:1 for the increased cost of almond or soy milk seems reasonable but charging an additional markup over what they set for dairy milk might not be.
If their case has merit, I hope they win, but I honestly wish these lawyer fees and court time could be better used to tackle more lucrative issues like suing Ticketmaster/Live Nation for their whole anti-consumer business model and price gouging or suing Comcast for their monopoly in my area. There are probably 1000 different places to buy coffee in my city but only one way to buy event tickets and one company offering broadband/high speed internet.
What’s absurd is that Almond, Soy, and Oat doesn’t cost more than dairy milk when you look at prices at a grocery. But Starbucks charges extra for it anyway.
What’s absurd is thinking that this argument makes logical sense. Do you think Starbucks buys milk at the grocery store? What do you think the ratio of milk to each milk alternative is? 100:1? 1000:1? The scale at which the purchase each would greatly affect the price.
When I worked at a restaurant that used a lot of milk it came in a 3 or 5 gallon plastic sack that went into a dispensing machine. Milk alternatives are likely purchased by the case in consumer packaging. The cost is entirely different.
I think a lot of people have no idea that many dairy alternatives are essentially the same price now. And that’s at a retail consumer level where the markups are biggest in the chain, bulk wholesale like what Starbucks pays would have an even smaller gap.
People are assuming there’s a massive difference in price, that just doesn’t really exist anymore… And that also ignores the absolutely MASSIVE markup Starbucks has for their coffee in the first place. It definitely doesn’t cost Starbucks $.50 to use Oat milk instead of regular milk, but that’s what they might charge the consumer for the substitution in a $6 coffee that cost them maybe $0.50 to make.
Lactose intolerance is the default for adults too. Them calling it a disability is wild.
