Tuesday’s incident was a protest coordinated with the Animal Ethics Agency (PETA). Cromwell is a longtime supporter of the group and serves as “honorary director”. He was seen in a video released by the organization, asking Starbucks to “stop charging more” for vegan milk.
Starbucks charges approximately 70 cents extra for a dairy alternative that includes soy, coconut, almond and oat milk, depending on the city in the United States. The chain recently lifted the surcharge on its stores in the UK.
“My friends at PETA and I call on Starbucks to stop punishing kind and environmentally conscious customers for choosing plant-based milks,” Cromwell told PETA in a statement. “We all have a stake in the life and death of the climate catastrophe, and Starbucks must end its role by ending vegan growth.”
The incident appears to have lasted about half an hour before police arrived to clear a cafe in downtown Manhattan. Cromwell seemed to scrape the glue from his hand with a knife.
“We respect the rights of our customers to express their views with respect, as long as this does not disrupt the operation of our store,” a spokesman for Starbucks (SBUX) said in a statement.
PETA has long spoken out on this issue. They recently prompted Sir Paul McCartney to write an open letter to the company to former CEO Kevin Johnson asking for additional fees to be eliminated, as they have done in the UK.
Cromwell was also nominated for an Oscar for his role as a farmer in the 1995 film Babe. He currently plays Ewan Roy in “Legacy,” which airs on HBO. Like CNN, HBO is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
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