Man ejected from downtown Spokane Starbucks last year withdraws $1,000 offer for date

Lucas Werner, the 37-year-old Spokane man who made national headlines late last year when he was ejected from a downtown Starbucks after asking a teenage barista on a date, is back on social media, where he offered to younger women money to go on a date with him.

After a six-month hiatus from social media, Werner took to Facebook and YouTube to promote a $1,000 offer to women “between the very legal ages of 16 and 25 whom does not already have children,” he wrote in a Facebook post at about 11 a.m. Wednesday. The post has been shared hundreds of times and features about 600 comments, mostly from people making fun of the offer or linking him to previous news articles.

He later withdrew the offer, however.

The legal age of consent in Washington is 16. Werner did not respond to several messages seeking comment.

The post asked for video proof of the women’s age, proof of residency in Spokane and a statement “declaring your feelings” about Werner. He also offered to take the women to Churchill’s Steakhouse, a fine dining restaurant downtown, for dinner.

“The clincher here is that my date has to be under the age of 26,” Werner said in a YouTube video uploaded around the same time as the post. “I know it’s a weird request, but I’m offering $1,000, so I think you can see past the ageism to go out with somebody who is fully prepared to be a father.”

In December, a post by Werner went viral after he claimed age discrimination by Starbucks after he was asked to leave the downtown Main Avenue cafe by a police officer. According to his account, he wrote the barista a note asking her to dinner.

A Starbucks spokesman responded at the time saying, “We have no tolerance for any such inappropriate behavior or harassment, and we will continue to support our store partners.”

In previous social media posts and YouTube videos, Werner has promoted his belief that older men and younger women produce healthier babies. He claims that men over 35 have higher counts of telomeres, a piece of human chromosomes that impacts aging, and women under 26 are more fertile than women his age.

His website, Conversation Our Age, which is no longer active, had a page of links to scientific articles and blog posts suggesting older fathers may produce babies with longer telomeres. Longer telomeres have been linked to longer lifespans.

In a subsequent video, Werner, who was recently homeless, according to his own account, said the $1,000 was “a joke,” and that he hoped people could look past the money and go out with him.