Viktor Stevenson, with a week-old gourmet lemonade business in San Francisco, was checking the alarm system to make sure his business was safe from thieves. Police showed up with “guns almost drawn” saying someone called 911 and accused him of being a robber.
They asked him to prove it was his business and he showed them his store key and his ID. He also told police he was on the phone with the security company at the time.
Stevenson said a few months ago, while setting up his business, someone wrote “monkey juice” on the side of the store. He said on Facebook that it wouldn’t stop him from living his dream, but as a husband and father he worried about his family having to go through this.
His wife is on high alert now: “I’m just sitting at home, just thinking about, would he be home safe Or will I get a phone call if something happens. You never know. It’s just terrifying for me,” Santhia Stevenson said.
Santhia Stevenson had nightmares and woke up screaming and crying, according to her husband. Stevenson said his 9-month-old son knew something was wrong with daddy and would not let him go, as he fought back tears in an AJ+ video.
“People die because of this kinda misuse of police resources and racial profiling every day,” Stevenson said.
No statement from the police department has been made yet, but there has been an outpouring of support for the lemonade business in response to this event. Requests on social media for cross country shipping as far as Virginia and Missouri have been made.
Gourmonade sold out of stock in just two hours on Sunday, following the incident, and Stevenson said it reassured him that his business was welcome in the community.
While San Francisco is a minority-majority city, Blacks make up only 6 percent of the population, according to the last Census report. Bay Area Black Market business directory has only 16 Black businesses listed.
The San Francisco African American Chamber of Commerce reports: “African American owned businesses in San Francisco had declined by nearly one quarter and African American business receipts fell by 60.7 percent in 2016.”
