St. Paul Chipotle manager fired after refusing to serve customers

The manager of a Chipotle restaurant in St. Paul has been fired after a video was posted online of employees asking a group of African-American men to prove they could pay before taking their order.

The staff of the Chipotle location on Grand Avenue where the men were denied service also is being retrained in the wake of the Thursday night incident, the company said in a statement. Chipotle said it conducted a "thorough investigation" of the incident.

Videos of the interaction were posted to Twitter; one of them has been viewed more than 2 million times.

The man who posted the video to Twitter, 21-year-old Masud Ali, told the Star Tribune that he was disappointed that none of the employees working behind the counter that night spoke up to defend the group.

In its statement, Chipotle said the company is "committed to treating all of our customers fairly and with respect.

"Regarding what happened at the St. Paul restaurant, the manager thought these gentlemen were the same customers from Tuesday night who weren't able to pay for their meal. Regardless, this is not how we treat our customers and as a result, the manager has been terminated and the restaurant is being retrained to ensure something like this doesn't happen again."