Roasters owner ‘resigns’ over backlash after comparing sex offender rights to BLM

The owner of a Tri-Cities-founded coffee shop empire says he’s resigning after being criticized for telling employees they couldn’t wear clothes supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and for sharing his own oppression as a convicted sex offender.

Wes Heyden ended up taking down his Twitter page under the Resilient Coffee Roasters name after the controversy erupted over the weekend. However, people have posted screenshots capturing the exchange.

Monday afternoon, Heyden sent out a companywide message that said he had no option but to resign immediately, according to an employee who received the message. Other employees posted the message publicly on social media.

Employee Cailey Wright organized a protest Saturday at the Roasters on Road 68 in Pasco that drew about 50 people in response to Heyden’s last-minute meeting earlier in the week to address his stance on Black Lives Matter.

She told the Herald that Heyden only gave employees a two-hour notice to attend the Wednesday meeting, threatening to fire them if they didn’t show.

Wright is a Black, single mother who has worked for the company for nearly a year. She told the Tri-City Herald that Heyden told employees in a text that anyone who was involved in the Black Lives Matter movement needed to meet with him, and if they didn’t, to pack their stuff and find other work.

The Herald could not reach Heyden on Monday. A man who answered the phone at Resilient’s wholesale office said Heyden likely would not want to talk, adding that everything was one-sided at this point.

During last week’s employee meeting, Heyden didn’t take a stand on the national movement that has gained significant ground following the Minneapolis police-killing of George Floyd. But he said everyone is racist in their own way, including those involved in the BLM movement.

“As an African-American woman, I was really hurt by his words,” Wright told the Herald.

On Monday, she told the Herald she wanted to send a message to Heyden that employees need to be supported.

“It wasn’t about them making a stand. It was about them leading with quality,” Wright said of Roasters’ leadership. “We need to know we are supported and loved.”

People then took to Twitter to criticize Heyden for his treatment of employees during the call for social and civil justice.

Criminal record

Heyden responded to one Twitter user late Sunday night with the hashtag “sex offender lives matter,” adding that he was mostly speaking for juvenile defendants.

He was convicted in Oregon for two sex crimes when he was 15 years old. Online court records show that while he was indicted in 1996, the crimes happened in 1993. The Josephine County District Attorney’s Office on Monday would not release the details of the 24-year-old case that involved one felony and one misdemeanor.

“I can’t vote. I can’t buy a gun. I can’t rent an apartment. I can’t get an SBA loan. I’ve been hated! NO!” said the response on the @resilientcoffee account with the profile name of “Wes.” “If I protest anything it’ll be for reformed sex offenders so they can restore their freedoms that should be open to all people.”

“Just saying, I’ve have [sic] less rights than most. Except I’m white which had its benefits,” he wrote in another response. “What’s worse being beat and profiled by cops, which I have over and over again, or living like you don’t deserve to? Being hated by all ...”

The person he was having the tweet exchange with, “Just Jordan,” replied: “Are you seriously comparing being a predator to being black right now?”

Wright confirmed that Heyden alluded to a past criminal record during the meeting but used it as an example of how he has grown from that and changed people’s perception of him.

Change in leadership

Monday afternoon, Heyden sent a message to employees expressing thanks to supporters of the company, but said he believed the only option was to resign immediately.

He went on to say that the company was a labor of love, and that he believed Roasters would be better without him.

Heyden wrote that he would be handing authority over to long-term employees.

Heyden, 42, founded Roasters Coffee in the Tri-Cities, starting with the stand in Pasco’s Red Lion Hotel parking lot in the spring of 2009. He now has 13 locations in the Tri-Cities and one in Walla Walla.

Roaster’s vision

The website states that the business exists to serve exceptional coffee and one another.

“Our vision from the start was to celebrate our people by allowing them to live their truth,” the website states. “We are genuine, celebrating the diversity of coffee, the customers, and ourselves.”

In an Instagram post June 3, Roasters stated that the business “stands with the Black Lives Matter Movement. We have a responsibility to stand with our black employees, guests, and community and to spread this message along.”

It went on to say the business “gains more strength by standing with our community” and the BLM movement, and “We pride ourselves in our level of inclusion and equality. We will continue to promote love.”

But people questioned why Heyden waited more than a week to address the movement and talked about the hypocrisy of the business’ exclusivity statement.

Heyden also recently made employees sign a dress code update, stating, “No clothing worn (may) include graphics displaying any political, religious or personal biases.”

Some posted screenshots showing that they had been blocked by the Roasters and Resilient accounts after expressing their opinions.

A Twitter user who said she’s conflicted about whether to keep supporting Roasters encouraged Heyden to address the issues for both his customer base and employees.

“You grew an amazing connection to the people in this city, I think it really would be wiser if you the owner took a stand and addressed the issues at hand,” Tyanna Snyder said in an early Sunday tweet. “You have employees current or past arguing. This can’t be comfortable for everyone.”

“What I’m seeing is people are just asking for complete transparency. What are the true values,” she added in a second tweet. “Everything just seems to be tip toed around. If you wanna talk, then talk, but not in circles.”

Meanwhile, several employees have posted on Facebook that they continue to support Roasters and that “Roasters loves everyone.”

The business website says they are opening two more shops, in Airway Heights and Spokane Valley, with the 17th Roasters planned for Yakima in the fall of 2021. Resilient Coffee Roasters has one storefront on Aaron Drive in Richland.

This story was originally published June 29, 2020 at 2:46 PM.