Lime, an e-scooter company, has apologized for partnering with a white-owned business during Black History Month. The e-scooter startup recently announced a Black History Month campaign in which it will provide drivers with discount tickets when they patronize Black-owned companies. It stated that its goal was to “bring more visitors to Black-owned, sustainable small businesses.”
“We’re giving riders discount incentives to visit these incredible organizations, building community and supporting black owned businesses, all while boosting the local economy,” Phil Jones, the company’s senior director of government relations and chair of Lime’s Black employee resource group, said in a statement cited by the Bronx Times. “We invite everyone to celebrate this important month with us by supporting local black owned businesses.”
Riders will receive a 25% discount on their next ride if they end their journey within 100 meters of a Black-owned business that Lime is working with this month, according to the promotion. Lime went on to announce that it was collaborating with the Way Café in the Castle Hill district of the Bronx. The cafe’s proprietor, however, is a white man named Andy Weaver.
He told The Bronx Times that Lime came to him to fill out a business form, and while he expressed interest, he assumed he would not qualify. He stated that Lime did not inquire whether the cafe’s owner was Black, but rather requested a photo of the owner. Weaver supplied a photo of himself, but Lime chose his cafe as the initiative’s lone partner in the Bronx.
After the Bronx Times asked Lime why it chose a white business, the company’s spokesperson Jacob Tugendrajch said that “a business signed up for this opportunity erroneously, which we fixed as soon as we were alerted to the issue.”
City Councilmember Amanda Farías described what happened as an “unfortunate mistake”. She however has no problem supporting local businesses, she said.
“I frequent there myself,” Farías said of the Way Cafe. “And so they are in a Black and Latinx community where they’re serving our families every day. They’re in the community with us.”
Weaver opened Way Café in 2020 after moving to the Bronx five years ago to perform Mennonite church outreach. He believes that “we are all equal” and that everyone, regardless of ethnicity or cultural origin, deserves to be loved.