Overview
- Poetica Coffee posted screenshots that showed Rep. Dan Goldman at a Williamsburg register, a $9.82 refund receipt and a message calling his drink “genocide juice” while saying “Don’t ever come to Poetica,” and the chain’s Instagram account was later taken down or deactivated.
- The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, led publicly by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, opened an inquiry on June 22 and said it will pursue enforcement if it finds the post unlawfully denied service based on protected characteristics.
- Goldman said the barista treated him and his 7‑year‑old daughter politely during the visit and that he bought the coffee to thank her, and he told reporters he would prefer DOJ resources focus on less public antisemitism cases.
- The episode produced street protests both condemning the shop as antisemitic and defending it, and it intersected with a heated NY‑10 Democratic primary where Israel policy and AIPAC ties have been a central campaign issue.
- Reporting has highlighted owner Parviz Mukhamadkulov’s prior anti‑Israel social posts, keeping the controversy in the public eye and raising questions about when political speech by a business crosses into illegal discrimination that the DOJ could act on.