From AP, via the Daily News (whose great tabloid-type headline was “Suit: Hole lotta bias at Dunkin”):
Dunkin’ Donuts steered a black couple away from lucrative franchise locations toward less profitable minority areas, according to a lawsuit filed this week.
Reggie and Amy Pretto, a black couple from Montclair, N.J., claim that Dunkin’ Donuts lied to them in 2004 when it told them there were no locations available in the New York metropolitan area.
Instead, they claim, they were steered to less profitable minority areas in Maryland based on false company reports. The couple of Monday joined a lawsuit that was file in state Superior Court in New Brunswick in May by Priti Shetty, who claims she was repeatedly harassed as a woman of Indian descent by a Dunkin’ Donuts district manager and says company officials prevented her from opening a third store that was later assigned to a white male franchisee.
A spokeswoman for Dunkin’ Donuts said the company values the diversity of its franchisees.
Wow, that Dunkin’ statement must have been made tongue-in-cheek.