A 13-year-old Black girl who was wrongly singled out on suspicion of theft by her manager at a Vancouver juice bar has been awarded more than $27,000 in damages for discrimination.

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has found that because of her race and sex, the young worker was subjected to a “poisoned” work environment at Heirloom, a restaurant and juice bar in the upscale South Granville neighbourhood.

The teen’s identity has been protected by the tribunal, and she is referred to as AB in a decision handed down on Friday. It says bias drove manager Nicholas Stone’s decision to confront the teen — and none of her co-workers — about shortages in the cash register.

The encounter left her in tears.

“AB was singled out as a potential thief, despite there being no evidence to that effect,” tribunal member Amber Prince wrote.

“In the absence of an explanation, Mr. Stone’s heightened suspicion, scrutiny, and monitoring of AB is consistent with persistent and harmful stereotypes that Black people are prone to theft and that Black children are more adult and less innocent than other children.”

After the original confrontation, and despite the restaurant owner’s evidence that cash shortages are common and usually the result of innocent mistakes, AB was relegated to working in the back of the store, the decision says. When she quit her job, Stone declined to write her a reference letter.

According to the decision, AB had been working at Heirloom’s juice bar for about six months when Stone called her to the back of the store and told her there had been some cash shortages during her shifts, the decision says.

AB told the tribunal that Stone called her “untrustworthy” and said, “We can’t have thieves working for the company.” She said he didn’t answer her requests for more information about the shortages, raised his voice above hers and then walked away when she started to cry.

Though Stone disputed her recollection of his comments, he acknowledged that he spoke to AB about the shortages, claiming it was his usual practice to speak with workers about this kind of thing, the decision says.

However, he admitted that he did not mention the shortages to any of the other employees who worked during AB’s shifts.