Funny, I've gone into Starbucks and used the bathroom without ordering anything at all. Without any problems. But then, I'm not black, so I was invisible to anyone looking for an excuse to throw me out. Those police officers had no common sense, either. Just because someone called them, they didn't have to ARREST the men. I wonder what the charge was, illegal waiting?
10
The problem in all seems to be just asking a little more patience and understand in a briskly unsympathetic employee and police at the scene.
1
This problem happened indirectly because the US has a huge homeless problem. The homeless need places to camp out. In Phila, the bathrooms at B&N, also on Rittenhouse Square, are filthy, and reek, no legitimate customer would want to use them. Also, the Phila libraries are like the homeless daycare center also driving legitimate library users away.
No wonder some businesses have a customer use only policy, to deter the homeless from camping out and drawing legitimate customers away.
The issue is not a racial problem as some are trying to make it.
If the Phila councilmen and women really wanted to solve the real problem of the restrictive bathroom use policy at Starbucks, the government needs to address and spend money on the homeless problem.
14
Last Monday I was in a Starbucks on the main street for Menlo Park/Palo Alto, and there was a black homeless man just sitting in the store out of the rainy weather. He smiled and talked to a few people who walked by him and everyone was gracious. The store offered him a free cup of coffee. I've seen this type of situation happen w him several times, long before the national Starbucks issue.
Isn't it ironic that Starbucks employees in rich, high-tech Silicon Valley are much more welcoming than in the poor-to-middle class areas?
6
Generally speaking, it's a LOT easier for rich, unstressed
people to be friendly and welcoming than it is for poor to middle class people who have a lot more stress.
9
I think the Starbucks employee is not as off as the Police, who should have cleared up the situation instead of making it worse. Also, it seems like the Starbucks CEO is taking the opportunity to close the 8.000 stores so it does not look as the business is not going as well. A month ago, one of the most popular Starbucks on the are that I live, has already closed its doors.
4
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps... then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
― Jesse Jackson
10
This is an issue that impacts all people, of all races, we all need a WC when nature inevitably calls. Different stores have different policies - generally, the larger stores have easy access to the WC without demonstrating a purchase. Some smaller stores too, but definitely other smaller stores have a restrictive policy, that the WC is for customers only. How many people have never used a WC at one time or another with a purchase?
From reading many comments, it also appears that a chain's policies can differ from one location to another.
What to do in the restrictive case? Either purchase the least expensive item that you can, and then you qualify to use the WC under the management rules, or else you find another more generous place to do your business. Or you throw a temper tantrum as happened here, and turn a common scenario into a racial episode, where the 'customers' were one race and the store manager was another, although it has not been shown that that was the cause of the bathroom key refusal.
It is interesting that Starbucks will conduct racial training, I wonder if they will relax their policies for all Starbuck locations, that the WC can be used without prooving a purchase, because this was the real issue here.
All the racial training in the world will not solve the basic problem of WC access with or without a purchase. And that was the real issue here.
5
I am a white 67 year old male and was told by a Starbuck's employee that I could not use the bathroom because I was not making a purchase. This was a Starbuck's in Times Square, N.Y. I immediately left and found another bathroom.
11
The world's absurdities never end.
First of all, calling the police on these two men was ridiculous and disproportionate. It is indeed true that there are still stores where black visitors and customers are poorly treated and even face discrimination.
As for closing 8 000 stores for "racial-bias training", I am left scratching my head. How would this be more effective than a company policy stating where and when it is proportionate to call the police? If you violate that policy, you should face the appropriate disciplinary measures. The notion that training can delve into your subconscious and train you our of being biased in one way or another sounds nebulous, to say the least.
7
Starbucks and McDonalds bathrooms are major destinations for homeless people. The bathrooms are used not only for elimination but for bathing. Hence, requiring a purchase before using a locked bathroom is Starbuck's way to address the issue of homeless people using their bathrooms. Not every Starbucks has a locked bathroom. Company Management should have a clear policy on which stores require locked bathrooms and how their staff should address the issue of bathroom use by people who don't want to purchase a product.
9
Racial-based training? What a joke. You can't "train" racism out of people, not without having a major influence in their life. This woman -- who I note wasn't even fired, by the looks of it....why is no one talking about that? Sounds like she resigned -- should never have been hired in the first place. Starbucks should be taking responsibility for this mess by looking at their hiring practices -- ie. IN THE MIRROR -- instead of these feeble public announcements of laughable measures they call proactive. This manager should never have been hired. But they aren't talking about that, are they?
4
Starbucks needs to be tested if they are to claim to be the poster-child for tolerance. Perhaps some organization or university sociology department could arrange sit ins by separate teams of whites and blacks taking up tables for 2 hours without ordering. 120 stores over 12 months should produce the appropriate data for a well grounded report.
3
Still waiting to hear about the training for police officers......
8
I think the employee did what was supposed to be done. Not fair to lose her job, as it was company policy . They didn't purchase anything.
7
He or she MAY be justified in not allowing access to the toilets. Most companies require you to purchase something before using their facilities, which is fair.
But did he or she have to call the police? Don't you usually get a manager before doing so?
I think the bigger issue is closing 8000 stores for "racial-bias training", which sounds nebulous and unlikely to address the issue. Why not simply state or restate company policy-- i.e, it is acceptable to call the police if and when... (fill in the blank). That would be more objective.
2
The bigger issue here is people blatantly disregarding racial injustice in this country. How long will it take to recognize we're all equal? Admitting you see nothing wrong with the situation that took place is the clear indicator of denying racism/prejudices exist today in America.
3
Have you ever heard of Affirmative Action? Are you aware that racial discrimination in employment, education, access to health care, transportation, housing, and most retail services is illegal? What more do you want?
5
Despite their high prices, let's have coffee at Starbucks and make purchases from all other firms seeking to stop our monstrous treatment of Afro-Americans. Let's, also, boycott all firms that aren't.
2
Name one private business that allows people to occupy their establishment and also use the bathroom without paying for something! Also, if we are going to have the conversation of disproportionate arrests and searches of blacks, can we also include the crime statistics? That would only be fair in a true debate.
11
I thought the issue was access to restrooms for non-customers. How did this become a racial issue? Starbucks is a leader in employing minorities. 90% of the employees at my Starbucks are non-white.
7
Starbucks can close those stores and keep them closed. How about training employees to clean the restrooms? No business is obligated to provide space for non-customers to sit, stand, or otherwise loiter. If you are not there to buy something, what are you there for? Waiting on a friend? Then go outside and wait. White people been told that forever.
10
Instead of racial-bias training, why not focus on good manners and sustainability issues? How about ending those wasteful drive-through windows? I think this incident is being blown way out of proportion. It's polite to purchase a cup of coffee and other products before using the facilities.
7
What should an employee do when two people sit down, take up space that could be used for paying customers and refuse to leave the business when asked? How should this have been handled, that's what I'm confused about?
9
They were waiting politely for their guest to arrive before ordering. What do you do, order for yourself and leave your guest to catch up? There was nothing wrong with their behavior?
6
I like that Starbucks is is making attempts to fix this. But it is only for their own publicity gain. The truth is, the people who work at Starbucks also show disdain for the elderly, who just want to order a cup of coffee and not be looked down upon because they do not use the Latte/Soy/ Venti lingo. I rarely go to a Starbucks anymore. Their condescending attitudes grate on me. And the little power trip that the managers seem to make calling the police needs to stop immediately. That was nonsensical and ridiculous.
I miss the corner mom and pop coffee shops where you felt welcomed.
12
I work in corporate training and I’m crossing my fingers for the training folks in Seattle. Pulling off a massive simultaneous training session on a topic like this in a month’s time is a herculean feat. Whatever the motivations of the leadership, it’ll be partly on the shoulders of the training team to take this chance and make a difference. As training professionals we need to start putting this type of training right up front -- and not just as a dry compliance checkbox or a canned response to objectionable behaviour.
2
I feel for baristas who have to monitor restrooms, especially because i know why they try to do it: the restroom at my local Peets (a midtown neighborhood) has been vandalized, set on fire, and had copper toilet fittings stolen. Noncustomers sometimes want to stretch out on the seating to sleep. Arrest may be too much, but calling police doesn't seem out of bounds after these experiences. Respect must go both ways, and there is no training for customers.
8
Please don't paint with a broad brush. The Starbucks I have gone to every day for the past 15 years has nothing but eager, helpful, kind, and talented employees. This sounds like more of an issue with a bad employee not a bad company. And no Starbucks I have ever seen (and I've seen lots around the country) requires you to ask to use the rest room or purchase anything to sit in the store?? Sometimes one bad apple spoils the bunch.
3
This is not a racist incidence it a color incidence.
Spend some GREEN.
8
One of the most disturbing aspects of this situation to my mind is the reaction of the other bystanders. In a longer video, after Andre Yaffe enters he repeating comments loudly that this is discrimination. At one point he asks if anyone else thinks it's ridiculous. I heard only one lone woman's voice reply while the other customers ignore him or look away. As much as the Starbucks manager, they are part of the problem.
9
I find it very interesting that there are no details about the two black men who were arrested. Who are they? What was the purpose of their meeting? What is their occupation? Where are they from? This lack of information leads me to believe that details of their background are being deliberately withheld.
7
So they fire the barista. Wow nice move. They should be firing the public relations department. I hope they tank.
2
The blame falls squarely on the lap of that barista. I visit many Starbucks in my travels and appreciate the service and product they offer. I've never seen any rudeness on any level even when patrons sit for long periods of time only interacting with their computers or just hanging out. I have seen homeless people there as well as some I think should be asked to leave but never are. I commend Starbucks for closing to train staff - no waffling by upper management! When there's a problem they have quickly moved to try to fix it. Best wishes to Starbucks. I will continue to do business with them.
2
Everyone builds this stuff up to a point where a lot of people just can't swallow it. Enough already.
This was an isolated event that never should have happened. Would it have happened to white people in the same situation...probably not. If it did it sure wouldn't be on the front page of the NYT. I'm sure at some point in the last decade white people have been asked to leave a Starbucks.
That doesn't mean that they are racist and refuse to serve black people? Do we think this is the first time black people sat in Starbucks without ordering and tried to use the bathroom? Of course not, yet this is the first issue. That means it's an isolated event where a lot of things had to break down to get where it did.
Are people saying that if they were at a Starbucks and someone asked them leave because they hadn't bought anything they would refuse...even if the person asking was in the wrong? Nope.... Maybe you'd complain, but you'd ultimately buy a coffee or leave, and then probably write a scathing email and get a free drink.
It's time for everyone to get off their moral high horse. If there is an issue it's that society as a whole has racial biases...coming down on Starbucks just takes the accountability off us and makes us feel better about ourselves.
8
I have not seen any details on how long these men loitered in the Starbucks or how they treated employees when asked to leave. A business is not a public building or park where you can just sit and take up space without patronizing the business. If the business called the police after they were waiting 15 minutes then Starbucks is clearly in the wrong. However, if the men were there for 2 hours refusing to order and being belligerent when asked to leave then the business acted appropriately. Are we setting the precedent that blacks be allowed to loiter and be belligerent and rude with no consequences just because they are black? Is it racist to enforce rules on minorities? More details need to emerge on this particular case that seem to be deliberately clouded over to reinforce an agenda.
17
Bingo. There is obviously a broader agenda here. And the answer to your questions is apparently "yes".
2
I am a very liberal person, and I get implicit bias and institutionalized racism, and I agree that those are very real concerns that need to be addressed in our society. But what I don't get or agree with is being asked to leave a business when you are not a paying customer, and refusing. That is grounds for trespassing. I am a school teacher, does this mean if a student is tardy to my class I still mark them tardy, UNLESS they are black, then they get a free pass to be late because if I apply the rules to them I am acting out of racial bias? NO, I'm apply the rules equally to all.
3
The person they were meeting showed up when the police were there. Who would wait two hours for their guest? You haven't been paying attention.
4
Starbuck's is a chain with many stores in Philadelphia. Its food and drinks are relatively cheap, compared to Del Frisco's Steakhouse, another chain with very expensive food and one franchise in Philadelphia. If these same two gentlemen entered Del Frisco's, sat down at a table for whatever time they felt like, declined to order anything and told the staff that they there there only to only use the bathroom and wait for a friend, would they be accommodated? Or would the police be called and these gentlemen would be forcibly removed for vagrancy and trespassing?
American blacks think it's still the 1950's and they're being denied service at many places because of their race rather than their obstreperous anti-social attitudes. It's merely businesses, in 2018, wanting to avoid becoming free public restrooms for what could be innocent bodily functions, but it could be to discourage nefarious behavior, i.e., vandalism or using drugs, or table-hogging by the homeless, denying paying customers a seat. Starbucks has a charitable division and that should not be in its stores. In the vast majority of fatal confrontations with police, blacks have refused to comply with an officer's orders, the ONLY race that thinks they can disobey police or society's rules. Please, black people, tell the rest of us in America, why you feel you should be allowed to get away with this behavior. It's no wonder your people have problems with police and with other races.
9
We all know what happened to the black community in the past. We are trying to get over it and correct the problem of past generations. But the media keeps it in the forefront and exploits it at every opportunity. Let's keep the past in the past and move forward people.
2
There are Black owned shops throughout America that have signs stating the bathrooms/seating are for paying customers only.
Will they fall under the same expectations and scrutiny?
10
Mission accomplished Dunkin' Donuts! Your scheme to get those two guys arrested at Starbucks has gone exactly as planned. You just got yourself one day of incredible coffee sales with the closure of 8,000 stores for employee training.
Now. Get in there, clean those urinals, wipe that donut frosting off the edge of the toilet seats and scrub those restroom floors. Make em' shine and stock em' up with fresh toilet paper. Your customers are going to love hanging around your bright, well lit, plastic furniture stores on May 29th and using your restrooms, especially after all that coffee drinkin'!
6
I detest coffee. Even the smell of it is retching.
And yet you will find me at Starbucks or DDs not buying coffee. Why? For exactly the same reason these men gave. It is a meeting place. The people who I am going meet up with gave Starbucks as a place they know of to meet. Someone likely planned to get their elixir of life there after we met. Oddly though, I've never been asked to leave despite buying no coffee. I've even gone into the bathroom, if only to check my hair and face after walking the wind tunnels of city streets to get there.
I am not alone. I've seen others, with nothing, waiting at Starbucks for their friends to show up. I've seen people sitting at tables with laptops who aren't drinking taking space. Maybe they had something earlier, maybe they will get something, but for now they are taking space and no one is arresting them.
That is what strikes many of us because we can think of the many times we done the same. We've waited for friends or colleagues at a location, holding off on ordering until all had arrived, and have not been asked to leave. We've done just what they did and weren't challenged for it. Matter of fact I've even been invited to wait for friends/family at restaurants at the table or bar without ordering till they got there.
What would have happened had they been left alone? Were they going to order or not? I don't know, but I would be upset too if I knew I was being discriminated against for doing what others do without worry.
33
The library is a meeting place, too. It's free. The park is a meeting place, too. It's free. Your friends' apartments and homes are meeting places too. They are free. Starbucks' business model makes it easy for freeloaders, the homeless, and other non-paying customers to soak up space at their tables, chairs,sofas, etc.
8
The fact is that people meet at commercial establishments gametime. People, being people and not an orchestrated meal, often don't arrive at the same time. It is common for those arriving early to wait for the rest of the party at the establishment. It's so common as to be portrayed in countless movies and TV shows as cliche.
They often meet there either for the express purpose of staying to dine or drink or grabbing something there and then going on to the next destination - whether meeting, main meal, or whatever. It is quite disingenuous to suggest that people expect "freeloaders, the homeless, and other non-paying customers" to have free reign over establishments.
6
And the Police Dept is doing what?
2
There is zero difference it is on a level playing field with
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/nyregion/fighting-a-mcdonalds-for-the...
Spend some $$$.
2
Can I tell you a story? My daughter and I and four friends traveled to Washington D.C. for a fun 'girls weekend'. While waiting to check in at the front desk, two African American men in their 20's were seated in chairs right in front of the front desk. It took quite a while for all of us to check in, and the two men sat in those chairs the entire time without saying a word to each other or anyone else. When all of us got our room keys, we went on the elevator together. In about 10 minutes, I took the elevator down to lobby to return the luggage carrier to the front desk. When the doors opened, there was nothing but chaos in the lobby! Those 2 men sitting in the chairs robbed the front desk clerk right after we left, holding a gun to her head!
5
Funny thing, it could have been two white guys.
Your anecdote about just missing being part of a crime has WHAT to do with two people at a Starbucks waiting for someone?
Yeah. Didn't think so.
6
Why not make restroom usage contingent on a purchase OR a whatever-you-can-afford donation? Donations can then be given to community charities.
1
The shutdown is smart public relations. Let's hope it works.
2
A better (and cheaper) public relations move would not be to say that the manager doesn't work at that store, but instead say that the person does not work for Starbucks period. She has been fired period.
That would let people see that they really won't tolerate this kind of behavior and instantly train their staff that doing that (calling the police because someone is waiting for someone at their shop) is not an acceptable action. The other managers would catch on quickly, faster than they would after a paid day of lectures and possible role-playing.
Read "The Art of War."
2
A master class in crisis management.
2
For a few dollars, the two black men could have been customers of the central Philadelphia Starbucks, allowed like other customers to use the customers-only bathroom and to occupy a table nearly indefinitely. There is a lot of implicit bias in the reaction to this incident. People seem to just know somehow that white non-customers would have been treated differently, and that the employees involved in this incident have to have been racist.
11
I learned 60+ years ago that:
1) to avoid POSSIBLE hassle when using an establishment's restroom it's best
to make a purchase - sign or no sign. (Just common sense & experience).
2) If I take a seat/table and don't order it's best to explain that I'm waiting for
another person. (Just common sense & experience).
On the other hand, despite these 2 customers' naivete (or peerhaps hope for confrontation - not sure which), mgmt has a common-sense responsibility to first warn them that police will be called if they don't explain why they're tying up a table and not making any purchase.
8
This is worse than pre-MLK America where black customers were only allowed back entrance into restaurants. Starbucks should be forced to pay heavy monetary penalty by U.S. Human Rights Watchdog. Corporations change only when it hits their pocket.
2
No it’s not. Far from it. This has happened to me MANY times and I am a white man. Stop your crying.
2
I am a brown man. It never happened to me. It never happened to my family either. Well, I am not crying, I am pointing it out. If it happened to you multiple times, you need to do some soul searching, and stop loitering in Starbucks without any purchases.
The fact remains what happened in Philadelphia is worse than pre-MLK America I read about. Some Federal Watchdog on Human Rights needs to levy heavy penalties on such incidents. That is my point of view.
1
I have been reading that here in Canada some coffee shops turn off the wi fi in peak hours...have redesigned their establishments to have standing tables. For some turning off the wi fi is to make the space more social. One local restaurant chain has their wi fi time out at 90 min. To me nothing is more annoying than if you want to sit down while shopping and buy a drink and.or a snack and all the seats are taken by lap tops and customers with a long empty cup. I realize there is the optics of a racial issue here but sometimes customers just want a brief rest.
19
Paying a couple of bucks for a bad cup of coffee, tying up a table for hours, and sponging up free wifi for hours is not a good business model.
3
There are a few things unthinkable. 1) Customers want to use the restroom without buying coffee. 2) The store rejects it. 3) The store calls police. 4) Police duly responds. 5) They arrest them. Either of them should not happen; especially 3) and 5) are beyond my imagination, which are, I have to conclude, based on racism.
3
Unless you buy something, you are not a customer!
9
While discrimination is real and Philly has its tension dynamics, former Starbuck CEO, Howard Schultz, asked for a race conversation and he was taunted mercilessly from all sides.
Unless everyone, white, black and otherwise* are willing to swallow their pride and hear each other out, there will never be real harmony
* yea, I personally know some non-black minority members who are fearful of black in the area, Obviously, their fear is expressed in racist tendency but getting robbed in the Temple U area when they were poor students tend to leave terrible impression. Obviously, that was a long time ago. Once upon a time, U Penn students would not go beyond 51st Street, Now, Philly gentrification behaves like other major cities.
2
Temple U students have not been the only robbery/mugging/carjacking victims.
1
This is a typical knee jerk reaction to a very small, isolated incident.
Close 8000 stores because we have to put on a show for the protesting public.
FYI - most of us don't care, we just want our coffee, there's SO much more REAL atrocities in the world to protest.
I'll buy mine on the 27th and re-heat.
7
It's the hysteria and moral outrage to situations like this that got Donald in the office to begin with. Does it sound like an employee made a poor choice that very much could have been influenced by her implicit bias? Yes. Did the public have evidence beyond a fragmented social media clip of this before arriving at the irrefutable conclusion- Starbucks as a company is racist and all white people are racist and the most logical thing to do is to provide sensitivity training to all staff, even POC staff? I really don't think so. Thankfully the National attention span is so short we won't be reminded of this again until the day where no one gets their morning coffee, which I expect could be the cause of the next great moral hysteria- I don't think clearly without some Joe in the system myself.
4
Starbucks is doing the right thing. The manager for that Starbucks made a serious mistake in public relations and paid the price. The publicity over her mistake is very serious, esp. now when there are plenty of other places to buy a good cup of coffee.
2
Two people who refused to obey the store's policy -- customers only -- refused to leave when asked, and then escalated the situation they created.
The fact they are black matters how?
11
The Philadelphia police department needs to do this as well, on a repeating basis.
Also Cambridge, Sacramento, and all the other cities where police murders of young black men have occurred.
1
This is not a Starbucks problem. This is a United States problem. How about we close the country for a day and give training to all citizens focusing first on institutions in which racism is firmly embedded. You know, police, courts, etc.
39
How many people go to an eatery and sit down and do not order anything? As far as using the bathroom if the door is open fine, if you need a key they are telling you the the bathroom is for paying customers. As far as posting yes they should have . They however are not a public bathroom. The police should have told them that not arrested them if anyone is at fault it is the police
The police ask them politely to leave and they refused. That is why the black chief of police is supporting the officers.
5
They were loitering, and the cops got called. They broke the law. Maybe it could have been handled better. But now 8000 plus employees will be treated as racists in need of "unconscious bias" training. I shudder to imagine the accusations that these employees will be forced to agree to in order to keep their jobs. It's character assassination gone large scale. I also shudder to imagine the racial anger it will inspire among those employees. I'll vote with my wallet. Goodbye Starbucks.
7
im ok with the result of this seemingly innocuous event turning into racial bias training for not only Starbucks, but also the entire retail industry. hopefully.
1
Of concern to me is the fascist nature of the store manager and the police. "Throw them out," she essentially said. "OK," said the police. Both the manager and the police refused to discuss the situation with the two arrested men and other customers. There was unfairness and arbitrariness. When customers told police that there were other customers sitting in the shop who hadn't bought anything, they were ignored. The fact that the two men were intending to buy something didn't matter. The fact that someone may want to wash their hands before eating or drinking didn't matter. The fact that the guy they were waiting for had arrived, and now they would be making purchases didn't matter. The fact that there were empty tables didn't matter. All that mattered was that the will of the manager be carried out by the police, no discussion considered. The police should know it's against the law to refuse service based on race, and the police should have entered into discussion about that. The Philly police are refusing to assume any blame. Surprise?
3
The deeper problem is that we don't have public restrooms in the U.S. I lived in Paris last year, and free-standing booths with toilets and a sink were widely available on the streets. To prevent misuse, the user had to pay a small fee.
But in the U.S., we have no sense of the public good. Everything here is about money. People can't take care of their basic needs in public without shelling out money.
32
Toilets cost money. And let's not pretend that the Parisians don't pay out the wazoo for all the "generous" goodies their government provides. To speak of money as some great social I'll is to be utterly disconnected from reality.
4
Isn't "to pay a small fee" about money?
3
Starbucks lost the plot more than two decades ago.
2
I just watched the video. There were two black cops that were ushering out the second black man. The other four cops were white.
frankly, I don't see this as being that big a deal. If I was waiting for a friend and needed to use the restroom I would have either bought a coffee or went elsewhere and then came back to meet my friend. If the manager of the store asked me to leave, I'd probably just leave. And never darken their door again.
23
It's a pretty big deal in the US to need to use a restroom and have no public toilets one can get to.
To have to make a purchase in order to pee is inhuman.
Here in Mexico there are public restrooms everywhere. There's a tiny fee to pay for their maintenance, the equivalent of about 15 cents US — big difference from Starbucks requiring a $2.50 purchase of a lousy cup of coffee, the last thing one needs with a full bladder.
3
It's a very real pleasure to see somebody taking responsibility for their actions and trying to put things right in a world where governments think it's acceptable to lie, deceive and dissemble. Shame on you governments and well done Starbucks.
4
IF (big IF) this arrest action really stemmed from a Starbucks policy of 'no buy, no bathroom use' then Starbucks should have posted that policy LARGE AND CLEAR both on the window facing the street and inside the store so ALL customers know before they enter.
8
When I'm in the US I avoid businesses that don't have the common decency to allow non-customers to use their restrooms.
3
Just curious, did the cops give them a choice of just leaving the premises in lieu of arrest? Seems like there was some lack of common sense all around.
7
Yes and they refused to leave.
4
They did, the "customers" refused, hence the arrest
5
This is not a Starbuck's problem. It's a problem with one racist employee. This could have happened at a MacDonald's or any other place where customers are served. I don't think the staff at Starbuck's are necessarily racist, although one individual obviously is and I don't think closing 8,000 stores for one day will resolve it. This individual can g easily go work at another fast-food place with her racist views intact. Starbucks is right in making anti-racist training mandatory for its employees, but every other customer service store in America should do it as well.
7
This is not new.
This is not a Starbucks issue.
It’s a national issue. With racism. And the authority afforded to white civilians to police black bodies occupying public space. And while we’re all reading this article about Starbucks and a seemingly extreme action taken by an employee who damn well knows the difference but whose racism was not contained because there has never been any need to before now, dozens more black bodies have been policed, punished, or extinguished. I’m tired of witnessing gasps of disbelief, passionate expressions of outrage, or staid offerings of finger-to-nose sagesse urging “more education on the issue” — all over abuses of power that are quotidian to most women and people of color.
This is not news.
Can we instead focus on the the societal mechanisms that manufacture these imbalances (and how to remedy them) instead of the acts themselves? This kind of press does not validate the experience of those who experienced something similar. It’s the opposite. More like, “why wasn’t my experience met with the same kind of outrage?” I expect it has something to do with the fact theirs didn’t tarnish the pumpkin spice latte experience.
For those who care, Derrick Bell’s work on interest convergence is an eye-opening deconstruction of power and race.
7
Hysterics. Starbucks is receiving universal condemnation from half the people writing comments on this story. What a joke. From the get-go, Starbucks embraced - sincerely embraced - being a socially responsible company. I have no idea what went down in Philadelphia, but it's an exception to how customers and non-customers are treated at Starbucks.
Living in Chicago, I walk into at least one Starbucks each day and watch a multi-racial staff serve a multi-racial customer base.
Maybe Starbucks employees do have a bias against black customers (not that these guys were customers). I'm going to start asking people about a bias and that's what the media should do as a follow-up story to this.
Starbucks' reaction is mysterious. The company hurt itself.
Finally this. If Starbucks can be universally criticized for what happened in Philly, McDonald's should shutter its doors and go out of business. In urban Chicago, there are house rules. You're going to buy a cheeseburger or you're leaving the premises and of course, you can't use the bathroom. The rule goes for white, pink, black and orange customers.
20
It is second-rate city county and state governments that provide few public bathrooms in cities and towns, forcing the public and vagrants alike into restaurants to steal bathroom use. The real clarification at Starbucks should be, is it OK for the public to use the restroom without buying something? Does it depend on the whim of whatever employee is around, based on ??? Is the employee supposed to parse requests into categories worthy and unworthy people? Can folks occupy tables in a restaurant with out buying anything? Are restaurant rules against that applied uniformly? Maybe everyone should be trained in economic-bias, too, since everyone seems to be biased against poor people who don't dress as well as richer people.
11
Excellent post. That is exactly the issue.
How about training in recognizing age bias, or ageism, as well?
1
It is absolutely mind-boggling the perceptions of a large number of commenters. Many just refuse to see anything except two black guys REFUSE to order then REFUSE to leave. It is also quite predictable when ever the New York Times covers this type of situation, the comment thread is flooded with a variation of the following theme:" Just Obey and then there will be no problems." Life just "ain't" that simplistic.
Two human beings were waiting for a colleague to show up; nothing unusual about that scenario- is there? Honestly? There was absolutely nothing posted that would lead any thinking human to believe waiting for someone to show up was a problem. So, why on earth would a manager present two patrons who merely have yet to order- an ultimatum to leave? Anyone honestly commenting here would have asked the obvious question- Why?
I must say, there is such a disconnect among the reality of the situation. It makes me quite sad that so many come out like proverbial cockroaches and flood the NYT with non reasoning tropes one would typically find on the fringes of Facebook.
I can only imagine if this was 1960 during the Lunch-Counter sit-ins; What would be written here about those who refused to give up their seats at the all-white lunch counters? What would be written about MLK's civil-disobedience?
55
I understand but just because they were waiting for a third person to come does not give them the right to stay there and not buy something.
10
"Honestly," they could have waited outside for their friend. If they were not there to buy anything, what were they doing there, inside the place? No business is obligated to let non-customers take up chairs, tables, seating, etc. that are provided for customers. If this were a restaurant, would these two guys be able to come in, take a table for six, and then just sit there and wait for a friend - and when the friend arrived, get up and walk out? This is a set up for a shake down lawsuit.
6
Can't tell you how pleased I am that now I will always know where there is a public toilet for me, and everyone else, to use - Starbucks.
12
Starbucks should do what Panera Bread does: put a lock on the bathroom doors that can only be unlocked using a pin on their receipt. That way they are forced to buy something if they want to use the restroom.
21
Yes, Starbucks should do as you suggest and show themselves up as total jerks.
1
Bingo! Why aren't other restaurants doing this already? Slow learners..
I use fast food restaurants' bathrooms when traveling, and rarely have been asked to buy something first. But these are not in major cities. Having run a restaurant for a friend once while he was having marital problems, it is not a food service store's responsibility or obligation to provide free toilets to anyone who comes in the door. Nor allow people to loiter for a long time without consuming something. Even with that though, in the 70's my friend's allowing his untidy hippie friends to hang out for several hours while nursing a bowls of soup is what eventually drove off the working lunchtime folks at the phone company next door, and killed my friend's otherwise excellent business with no possibility of recovering. He had to close the doors and sell off everything. It didn't have to happen. He could have said "no" and not mix friends and business: the downfall of many enterprises.
1
Plenty of Starbucks bathrooms require a code.
A store manager does something stupid and suddenly it's all about Starbucks the company. Give it up.
7
Many businesses have mandatory training that they pay their employees to undergo. It seems as though they are seeking extreme praise for this training that they should have provided their managers. It seems like a low cost PR effort.
1
In this topsy turvy world I think most people are forgetting that if you want someone off your property (and property owners have the right to toss people out) and they are not complying, calling the cops is in fact the best way to handle the situation.
Because the only alternative to enforce your property rights is self-help--i.e., start a fight, etc.
The cops are there so people don't resort to violence.
23
I don't believe we know the whole story.
They were told to leave if they did not buy a drink.
They complained that other people were there who didn't buy anything and were not told to leave.
How would they know that.
Is it possible they have been there in the past and they have a history of buying stuff there.
They should have complied when they were asked to buy something.
I don't think calling the police was right but if they refused to leave was there anything else they could have done.
Sorry but these men put themselves in the situation that ended with the police being called to get them to leave.
They should have bought something.
21
The Starbucks Corp needs to address the pain and humiliation inflicted on these two men in a way that goes beyond the conventional corporate apology. A minimal payment of $25,000 to each would be appropriate, in language everyone understands.
4
As a long distance cyclist our group frequently had a need for bathroom breaks. We use CVS, Wallgreens, Starbucks and 7-11s for the most part. None have a sign saying restrooms are for customers only, and we have never been asked to leave or had the restroom refused for our use. And yes, we are all White. On occasions our group buys something and sometimes we don't. I'd like to think this was a VERY isolated incident for Starbucks as it's pretty well known one can always use a bathroom there without issue or purchase. I am surprised these two gentleman asked first. Was there a key required because of it's city location? Been to many in NYC w/o a key.
4
Maybe because after you used the facilities you either left or stayed and bought something.
I live in NYC where most of the workers at the Starbucks are black.
I know from personal experience that there are many Starbucks that have a combination lock on the door.
When you have so many Starbucks you can not make a statement that generalizes when you have only been to a few.
5
I learned three positive things about Starbucks in this article:
1/It offers free WIFI
2/It offers comfortable bathrooms
The two first items are restricted to the whites but:
3/Even if a black citizen mistakenly enters a Starbucks, in the end, he won't be shot by police...
So by american standards, Starbucks coffees are safer than streets for black folks...
10
Funny when recently in Paris, my 8 year old was not allowed to use two different bathrooms as they were for customers only.
3
Pretty simple. You don't want to bring your hot and freshly purchased coffee (or food) into the restroom. Starbucks - and the smaller community cafes it once emulated - get that. So you're not going to be a paying customer yet, even though you will be making a purchase in that example. Perhaps the answer is Chick Fil A's people taking orders at the bathroom? Credit card door locks?
Other than that, there is a still unresolved issue of where Starbucks puts its stores - too many in aspirational mostly white areas. If an area can tolerate a Dunkin Donuts, it can tolerate a Starbucks. Especially in the areas of banks and hospitals, with staff that can afford a Starbucks habit.
Philadelphia has a unique problem with racial profiling in Center City it can't shake. Look up the issues with various gay bars like iCandy, Woody's, and from the past Kurt's. The way the men on the video were dressed gets black men extra door processing all over Center City. That's why I don't visit that part of Philadelpha very much.
4
I've been in the Starbucks where this inicdent took place, including times where I needed to use the restroom. And was very careful to make sure I could use it if i bought something, as I disn't trust them, since there were no signs indicating who the restrooms were for. And I am white. I am not surprised one bit this racist inicident happened, as this Starbucks was hipsterville, and also seemed to be rather snobbish. Remind me never to visit Starbucks again period, there are pleanty of good coffee shops around Center City to get a drink at.
2
Please........what an overreaction.
2
Over at Fox News the comments on this story are overwhelmingly against the two black men. What a surprise, eh?
7
I guess it depends on what the story actually is.
3
I was just in a Starbucks last Friday while driving through Aberdeen, Washington...I really just needed to use the bathroom but being from Minnesota I knew I should buy something. I bough some water and then used their bathroom. If I had been in Philly with those guys that were arrested I would have bought them coffee or water too....so they could use the restroom. Minnesotans mostly just hate conflict.
5
A Thinking City (Sydney Australia)
To find local public toilets, search the National Public Toilet Map , which provides accessibility details and opening hours.
These automatic facilities are open 24 hours a day:
Hyde Park (North and south)
Belmore Park (near Central Station)
Wynyard Park
Ward Park (Surry Hills)
Circular Quay (Alfred Street)
Fitzroy Gardens (Kings Cross)
Joynton Park, Tote Park and Nuffield Park (Zetland)
Public toilet strategy
The City's public toilet strategy recommends, subject to funding availability and budget approval:
building new toilets in identified village centres
upgrading toilets in some neighbourhood parks
providing accessible public toilets at Town Hall House
investigating the use of retractable pop-up urinals in entertainment precincts
encouraging retailers and cafes to provide public access to their toilet facilities.
5
There are myriad public toilets everywhere in Mexico. Some are free, some charge a small mantenance fee of 2 or 3 pesos — about 10¢-15¢ US.
Judging by many comments here it seems a good deal of people are very offended by the prospect of people sitting in a coffee shop and not buying something. What if people just sat around talking in cafes and using the restroom?! Horror! What will become of poor Starbucks in this dystopian future we have imagined?
7
Why would you go to a business (Starbucks is not a charity) and never buy something to drink and/or eat, just use their restroom and take up table space to sit around and talk? Your home is the ideal location for that, not a coffee shop.
20
I think that comments directed toward the convenient target of the police are misguided in this case. They did not make the decision that the two men had to leave. Once the manager had done so and they refused to leave, they legally became recalcitrant trespassers, and the police then had a professional responsibility to remove them.
It is the manager's fault; he turned them into trespassers. Condemning the police is just a knee-jerk reaction.
13
Why were the charges dropped then?
2
I don't think the manager magically turned anyone into trespassers.
2
Charges are usually dropped when something like this happens to white people so why is it somehow proof that they were told to leave because they are black.
1
May 29 better not be my Double Stars Day.
And if you think that's a lightweight response, so is calling the outrageous arrest of the two customers "inappropriate."
Get a clue, Starbucks.
1
Is this a new strange form of affirmative action that I'm unaware of? If you're white, and don't buy something at Starbucks and are asked to leave, and refuse to, the cops can take you in and that's that. But if you're black and do the same and are taken in by the cops, 8000 stores are closed down and you get to meet with the company president, who profusely apologizes for not allowing you to loiter.
22
It is time to mandate that every police department institute the same racial bias training.
5
why, what did the cops do wrong? They responded to a call of trespassing, asked the trespassers to leave, they refused, they were escorted out. seems very reasonable to me
2
Good for Starbucks for choosing to provide anti-bias training for their employees. But the Anti-Defamation League has no business contributing to any of this training. They have an ugly track record of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism.
2
Too little, too latte.
6
One incident, one store. This is almost a comical reaction. This is just over the top with a cherry on top.
The Starbucks in my area is a virtual poublic toilet for every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Im there every day and the flow of people in out is constant with no purchases.
8
Glad to hear it. That's a civilized policy.
Our country is under attack by divisive forces, attempting for their own political purposes to sew the seeds of discontent, and divide us even further. Our present administration is participating in this orgy of self destruction and using staged events such as this one as the pretext for the need of tougher police intervention. I am dismayed that what was clearly a staged event by two "agents provocateurs" to embarrass Starbucks to focus attention on social inequity was obviously a sham from beginning to end. There are sufficient instances of them without having to manufacture them.We must be able to respond fairly when social evils are committed, but this was certainly not one of them. No rational American or minority would purposefully call attention upon themselves by their type of behavior without expecting to be challenged. Parenthetically, the Philadelphia Police Department and Starbucks staff at no time used either inappropriate language or undue physical force. Philadelphia in my eyes remains true to it's motto: The City of Brotherly Love. God Bless Her.
8
Article says "The employee who called the police is no longer employed by Starbucks" and links to an article from yesterday (4/16) which reports: "'We can confirm that she is no longer at that store,' a spokeswoman said, declining to name the employee or provide further details." I can't read all 450 posts to date; has the employer been verified as no longer employed by Starbucks in any way -- not moved to another location, not given a different job at the firm? (Also, I know not every Starbucks is company-run; some are licensed franchises. Will the shutdown & training include the latter as well?)
How sad it is that people still need training to not be racists. Yes, I believe the employee who asked them to leave and called the cops is a racist. I just don't understand how people can be racists. Why can't people just treat everyone well regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, religion or any other way they are different? It's so much easier to just live and let live and not hate or discriminate. Just think about how you would want to be treated and do that. No training necessary!
2
Racial-bias training should be required for all retail CEOs and store managers across America.
It’s time that they stop with the profiling /following of black customers; and let’s not pretend that they don’t know that it’s happening.
Blacks should boycott stores that persist with this demeaning practice.
3
The starbucks employee is probably an uneducated, immature person. Yes train them. I see this as the fault of the police. Period.
1
How ironic that Starbucks and Facebook - two of the most liberal, left leaning companies there are, are being exposed for the frauds they are and are struggling to explain their actions.
Where are the calls here for shutting these two companies down!! That's how we deal with things we don't agree with now - we don't talk or discuss ideas to improve things anymore - we react and attack - right??
6
Refusing to allow someone in need to use a restroom is petty and vile, not "left-leaning."
2
This NY Times story seems to be missing some details. The Washington Post reported that the two men in question were waiting at Starbucks for a third man, the person referred to in this story as Andrew Yaffe. He invited them to meet him at Starbucks for a real estate-related meeting. They explained to the police that they were waiting for him but were arrested even after he arrived and confirmed that they were indeed waiting for him. Other patrons of the Starbucks in question said the two men had not caused any disturbance and that the same employees who denied them access to the restroom had allowed a white woman to use the restroom in question without making a purchase. If Starbucks had had a posted policy stating clearly that only paying customers could use its restrooms, or wait for third parties in the store, this situation would be understandable. But that would pretty much go against Starbucks' cultivated image as a "home away from home." So the problem here is whether employee "discretion" ends up masking bias. Also, if the police had bothered to gather information from the other patrons in the store, they might have decided that an arrest was completely unnecessary in this situation. The Washington Post story includes a statement that the employee who called the police did not intend for the men to get arrested.
14
Good comment.
Is it possible if they treated her differently it was based on some other factor.
Maybe because they are men and they treat women differently.
Maybe they treated her differently because she might have been elderly.
Maybe she has been there before and is a good customer.
I go to a coffee place often where I live and usually buy something.
They know this and because I am a good customer they will look the other way if am there and do not buy anything because they want the business I give them.
So if this women had been there before and was a good customer the store would be justified in not telling her to leave and telling these men to leave.
I
2
Permitting only "good customers" to use the restroom is a poor marketing strategy.
Building good will generates future customers.
But many big companies have no sense of good will.
2
I don’t know. Many places have “restrooms for customers only” so why should Starbucks gets razzed for it? It’s a business. What if all the seats were taken by non paying people? How would they make money? Black or otherwise, I think these 2 men were wrong.
22
You don't go to Starbucks very much I take it. Its culture includes loads of people who pop in for a sit now and then without purchasing. It is common.
9
You miss the point. Starbucks isn't being razzed for the pay-or-leave policy, it's being razzed because it doesn't enforce that policy consistently. Why was the manager so determined to call the cops on these men while giving all the other non-payers a pass? If she was so determined to enforce the pay-or-leave policy then why didn't she ask ALL the non-payers to leave?
If you can't see the problem then you just might be a racist.
6
Yes and these people usually do buy something even if they do not buy something every time they are there.
They might be with other people who have bought something.
Is it possible that race was not the only thing that made these two men different from the other people there.
These two black men were not known there.
Most of the other customers probably have been there before and were known.
Maybe they were treated differently is because they were not known and did not buy something there and either the other customers were known or were unknown and did buy something there.
2
What is overlooked here is that we live in an oligarchy. We are a society that puts no value on the lives of the embarassingly large number of homeless people (many of them veterans who have returned from the battlefield with PTSD) in our country. People fanatically obsessed with the fate of undifferentiated blobs of cells vote for policies that punish in the most cruel manner those whose bad luck has put them in a situation where a Starbucks or similar establishment is the only place available to relieve themselves.
5
I think this is an undeniable competition to see which company can fall all over itself in the most ridiculous way. So here we have loiters/trespassers who graduated to non compliance accompanied by obstruction of justice and, as it turns out inconvenincing of all of it's customer base unnecessarily to demonstrate how they PC they really are, is the answer. In reality, the only mystery, is what on earth the the question is...
12
"Loitering" is not a crime.
A public business is stupid to restrict people from using its restrooms. Anyone can be a past or future customer.
And then there is common decency.
2
I see many comments from those who think the men should have left when they were asked to leave. This may be true. However, isn't the real issue is that they were asked to leave in the first place? Let me explain. My husband is white. I am black. He read this story and said, "Sometimes I sit in Starbucks and wait for people, or use the bathroom without a purchase and not once have I been bothered." Granted, I'm sure he would have left if asked. But it's highly unlikely that's a choice he would ever need to make. I am sure these men's choice not to leave was a well thought out one. Perhaps to even stir up controversy such as this; to shed light on the fact that people of color are still treated differently in this country and held to a different standard. Have they used this to their advantage? Absolutely. Do I fault them for it? Not really.
9
When they talk about "implicit bias", why do I think they want to institute "explicit bias"? Why was this employee fired, when all she did was enforce to the letter Starbucks' existing policy about purchases and use of scarce store resources? If she hadn't, wouldn't she have been fired anyway?
15
Starbucks has specific guidelines to follow for when its employees should call the police. This employee did not follow these guidelines which is most likely why she was fired. Refusing their use of the bathroom was a decision made by that employee as it's common knowledge one can use a Starbucks bathroom without buying anything. And, as far as scare store resources, most often there are numerous people using tables and chairs long after their purchase is consumed, or maybe some haven't purchased anything. This was a judgement call by the employee, both she and the police involved lack common sense.
7
"it's common knowledge Starbucks customers can use the bathroom without buying anything"
Many busy urban Starbucks locations I've been to (NYC, Paris etc) require a code to use the bathroom which can be only gotten after a purchase. There's one in downtown Brooklyn that won't let you use the bathroom even with a purchase!
9
I think it depends on which Starbucks location who gets to use the bathroom. In my city, they've been cracking down because homeless have been making a mess, using drugs in the bathroom, etc. It got to be too much, so virtually all of them have keycodes and some have it printed on the receipt.
If I couldn't use the bathroom even with a purchase, though, I'd have to go elsewhere for coffee--that's ridiculous.
1
Why was this even made into a race issue in the first place? The same thing happens to customers of all colors and it never makes it on the news. Makes me think it was staged just to see how hyped up it would become. I think better signage and more common sense is needed in a situation like this, not exploiting it on the media across this country.
28
Starbuck’s move is only on the surface.
What about free drinks on that day for people of color?
My NYT bona fides: WHAT HAPPENED WAS WRONG. Now for the hard part.
The deepest minds blame Starbucks (the deepest pocket) for...instructing?...its employees (the non-minority ones?) to discriminate against minority patrons (and quasi-patrons). The logic (for a trial attorney) could not be clearer. Starbucks should have spotted this employee’s bias long before the fifth interview. They might also have detected whether she had institutionalized ideas about the use by males of a restroom she will have to clean.
Starbucks “Training Day” (175K employees, training teams, overhead) could cost, say, $20M, a scalding rise from the days when a viral coffee disaster cost a scant $3M. Maybe SB should adopt a drive-through model.
Actual damage done was 8 hours for 2 victims. Emotional damage was of course infinite, which is good news for future victims, as the Philly City Council member depicted in NYT’s photo will surely shell out $40M for every incident of bias by city employees, starting with the police and prosecutor who inflated the cafe manager’s request - that the victims be removed - into an 8-hour ordeal involving an arrest, which by coincidence our Council member is in the best position to expunge from the victims’ arrest records (if any exist).
It’s nice that Kevin Johnson is taking a roasting for Simon Legree. It’s nice. I usually buy a wee bit when I enter a restaurant simply to use the restauroom. I never knew I didn’t have to!
4
Is there any evidence that race had anything to do with this?
Assuming that, without evidence, is exactly the definition or prejudice ("pre-judgement").
16
If I weren't already boycotting Starbucks for its many, prior PC stunts, I'd begin now.
8
Indoctrination, not "training". Training is how to make coffee, or operate the cash register.
12
So what does education about sexual harassment in the workplace fall under for you?
5
Easy fix: don't hire racist people.
3
is it really racist? Or could it be, they have had so many incidents with black guys.They got touchy about it? I think the police handled it wrong, more than Starbucks.
I don't expect that I can take up space at a restaurant without buying anything. If the manager did ask me to leave because I had not purchased anything, I certainly would. The two men should have left before the police were called.
38
If the manager had let them use the restroom, as any decent person would, there would not have been a problem.
1
Serious question- what if Starbucks simply put up signs statong " restrooms for paying customers only."? In Old Town Pasadena, almost every retail,coffe shop, or dinng place has that sign. And the only coffee places that DO NOT have signs giving time limits for wifi or hangng out without ordering is Starbucks.
17
That would be bad for business.
I go to some restaurants more than once a week.
I expect to be given preferential treatment and when I am in the area I will take advantage of that and use their facilities even if the only reason I am there is to use those facilities.
If they had a strict policy of only allowing paying customers to use their facilities they might lose me as a customer who goes there every week.
Why did the cops participate? Let's shut down precints to train them that it's not in their best interest to continue racial profiling either.
6
"The female manager told a dispatcher that there were "two gentlemen" at the coffee shop who were "refusing to make a purchase or leave," according to a recording of the 911 call released by police."
The female manager is obviously a racist and a man hater , what other conclusion can you arrive at? BTW, I've been kicked out of better places than Starbucks.
9
Nothing the men did sounds disruptive - and surely not to the extent that law enforcement ... have more important things to do than shoo non paying people from an overpriced coffee shop ... needed to be called.
Re: "gentlemen" A person can use courtesy descriptors and still be harbor sentiments that indicate otherwise. Much like someone can smile in your face while cutting you off in traffic. --
4
You mean there are better places than Starbucks.
I like DD but there coffee isn't good.
I go there because it is cheap and only two blacks from where I live and I know other people who go there for the same reason
When in Manhattan I always go to a Starbucks.
Maybe Jersey is different.
I should move there.
I believe that, at least here in Massachusetts, restaurants are required to have restrooms open to the public. I don't know the exact law, but it seems like it would be just plain common sense: If the eating establishment offers a restroom labeled as such to customers, they should stop the nitpicking stupidity and just let anybody use their restroom without questioning them. It's just ridiculous to have an employee demanding a purchase in order to use the restroom. I don't know if race was a factor in this incident; I suspect it was. But the whole thing is just ridiculous. Let anybody use their restroom. Anybody at all. If you are in the beverage and food serving business where people consume their purchases on the premises, just let things come out the natural way.
6
Charles E--you contradict yourself--First you say "let anyone use the restroom in eating establishments, but then you end with "if you are in the beverage and food serving business where people consume their purchases on the premises," just let them use the restroom. So, which is it? Actual customers or any person who just wants to use your business as a rest stop?
1
I don't think eating establishments should be acting as security agents to make sure only customers use their restrooms. It's mean-spirited, and it's bad public relations. You know that there is such a thing as a potential customer? And also, bad news about an establishment travels ten times faster than good news. Unless they see inappropriate activity going on, such places would be well advised to let anybody, anybody at all, use their facility.
2
It happened to me twice in NYC about 8 years ago. And I'm white. The employees that tried to kick me out were Latino. I reported the first incident to Starbucks by email. No response. The second time I spoke to the manager, he apologized and gave me a handful of free drink cards. And I was a regular at the second store, Astor Place. It's company policy in the hands of idiots. Very dangerous.
13
How about shutting down Starbucks until they learn to make coffee. I drink mine strong and black (no pun intended) and their coffee is just bitter swill. Army mess coffee was better.
At least they're trying to be race neutral. They can work on quality next.
10
Why do you go there and order the coffee if you don't like the coffee.
1
Starbucks has never been there for everyone in the community, just for some.
Amazing how you can gentrify a commodity like coffee. BYOC!
5
Race aside, why do you go to Starbucks and refuse to buy anything?
29
They were waiting for another person. Possibly the idea was they would all order together.
6
Immaterial.
They were told to buy something or leave.
They should have left or bought something.
1
This retiree remains astonished that in this day and age, this level of discrimination persists. I thought that I would witness America mature in my lifetime.
5
The media calls what happened to those men an example of racial profiling. But Black folks call it "Tuesday."
8
I wonder if Fox News will shut all its stations down for a day for sexual harassment training. Couldn't hurt.
12
As a white woman approaching 60, I have used my share of restrooms provided by private businesses. In some cases I have ignored posted signs "for customers only" on the grounds I have patronized the establishment or chain in the past and expect to again in the future. No one has ever questioned me or prevented me from answering the call of nature, which gets more frequent as you age. I know my appearance enables me to fly below the radar in a way that African-American males cannot. Differential treatment based on implicit biases over who poses a threat is unacceptable and I am glad Starbucks recognizes that in the wake of this social-media publicized incident.
20
Obviously, stores in southern CA work differently.
1
Given that these men were doing nothing more than calmly waiting for someone to meet them, it is very disturbing that:
a) the manager decided this warranted a call to 911
b) the police would actually take this matter so seriously as to arrest these two men and hold them until 2 a.m.
To put it into perspective: I once witnessed a man in a Starbucks near Time Square scream at a barista, threatening to come back with a gun and start shooting people. The shift supervisor correctly contacted the police.
Philadelphia is a large city with large city problems: robberies, violence, corruption, gang warfare etc.. Did those officers really have nothing better to do with their time?
As for the manager, someone needs to teach this person that 911 is to be used only for emergencies and that the police are employed by society to prevent crime and disorder. They are not your business's personal bouncers.
17
Lack of ID on you person can cause you to be held by the police.
3
Most of what you say is true, but don't the police have a responsibility to respond. Even if it was ridiculous. And NYC has a lot of violence too.
2
That may be true, but it's not legal.
It's not a crime to lack ID.
Both the Starbucks employee who phoned polI’ve and those who handcuffed the men reacted improperly. I was at a coffee shop when a woman asked If i would buy her coffee. After she received her coffee, an employee called the police. The police arrived asked if she was bothering customers. They said she was not. And the police officer loudly stated she was not going to interfere with a persons rights.
6
Homeless people or the like going into stores asking people to buy them coffee when those customers have their wallets out is my definition of bothering customers, and it can be very intimidating, as well. It boggles my mind that the coffee shop employees did not say "yes" in your scenario.
11
Begging may be a crime in your world.
In my world it's a right to ask people for help, and heartless people like you have the right to refuse.
Let's deter people from calling the cops for fear of being labeled a "racist."
Brilliant idea...
38
so there were roughly 5,225,000 customers at US Starbucks stores last year. And 2 of them got into a problem and were arrested. So now 9500 stores have to close for racial "education"? Sounds like something Mao Tse Tung did in the 1960s.
I've been mugged inn midtown Manhattan 4 times -- always by pairs of blacks. My house was robbed once, by blacks. I've been harrassed about a dozen times in parking garages and elsewhere -- always by blacks. Wouldn't it good to have blacks subjected to educaiton about bias as well?
This Starbucks episode is an outrageous act of bullying. An incident happend. Good. Give them free Starbucks for 5 years. But really, but our this "racist" hysteria.
39
You're holding all blacks accountable for the criminals who robbed you.
And yet you laughably claim to lack "racial bias."
1
Great. Now all black people should be trained that restrooms are for customers.
25
When people see a "black person" they just need to see a person. Its pretty simple. In terms of behavior, there are good and bad in all groups, even white males LOL
4
Philly is the new Bama. Who woulda thunk?
2
Philadelphia is an amazing place (and I speak from experience) you can't judge it by one incident involving 3 individuals.
5
Does the NYT have the actual police report? If so please publish it.
8
I just mildly commented that I could have been in the situation of waiting for a friend before buying coffee, and needing to pee before the friend got there. Here in a fancy suburb in the quiet midwest, we don't have lots of people who don't buy anything, or heroin use in the bathrooms, or employees who watch whether any given person pees, lurks or buys coffee. I feel bad that Starbucks has so many locations where people squat or shoot up. Will the training help employees deal with lurkers or addicts, or just with being nice to people of color?
12
What a politically correct joke. The employee who called the cops should be fired, end of story.
1
Maybe more public restrooms for everybody might be a good idea too.
19
Sounds more like a public relations ploy. They should donate millions to the United Negro College Fund. That would improve race relations and their image.
7
No it wouldn't improve race relations. America is sick of the financial and emotional extortion anytime blacks are slighted. When the dynamics are the other way around usually the wronged party is lucky if they even get a casual apology.
18
Well we have a right to agree to disagree.
1
This sounds like more 'oh us poor, poor pitiful white people, always so downtrodden'.....
And I'm white.
5
Starbucks Employee training:
Dear White People,
Black People go potty too.
Sincerely,
Management
10
Next time I go to Joe's Stone Crabs in south beach, I'm hanging out and not buying anything. Then I'm going to demand to use the bathroom.
26
How about shutting down all Starbucks until they figure out a way to make a decent cup of coffee instead of sugar laden caffeine milkshakes.
10
Find another coffee shop, perhaps?
3
One bad manager spoils the whole bunch!
So it's that widespread at Starbucks? I just figured it was the occasional idiot following the instructions to only let customers who buy something use the restrooms. Fire that guy, and move on. Unless this is another self-immolation publicity stunt by a "progressive" company that really only cares about profits. Hmmm?
7
Wow. I’m amazed at the tone deafness and blindness of so many of my white brothers and sisters. And I’m white, too, so shut it a minute.
Was the manager technically correct? Probably. Was she an idiot for not handling this differently? Yes. Was there likely a subconscious (or not) racial bias that led her to call the police on two black men when she probably would’ve granted the benefit of the doubt to two white men? I’d bet my annual bonus. But unfortunately most white people don’t see the ugly side of America that African Americans and other minorities experience daily. And yet they think because a black person was brusque with them or refused them a request once that it all evens it out. Wake up.
12
Would she have treated two white guys giving her a hard time differently? I doubt it. She is a woman and probably has been hassled by many, many men in her life.
11
Another video has surfaced (why it wasn't included in this article?) of another black man- in Los Angeles in January; asks to use the restroom without ordering and manager says no. He videos his conversation with a white man (non ordering patron) who was given the restroom code by the same female manager; the black male confronts female questioning why? She orders him out and black man is escorted out by security.
Question: Why would anyone who is waiting for others in their party (as the case in Philadelphia) be compelled to order before the other's arrive?People are routinely seated in restaurants without being required to place their orders when waiting for the arrival of others.
Why doesn't Starbucks have a sign stating:
"Upon arrival- patrons have 5 minutes to place an order or you will be thrown out of the store for Trespassing?"
Why is't there a sign on the front of each Starbucks door stating "NO PUBLIC RESTROOMS; Restrooms are for paying customers?"
The Simple reason : Starbucks Corporate Culture has never functioned this way; people are allowed and encouraged to use Starbucks facilities as quasi-living rooms. Free Wi-Fi; linger all day; do your homework; write your memoirs; upload resumes....
To frame this story as two black men decide to "cop-a-squat"; refuse to order- refuse to leave is not only disingenuous;is a lie.
8
Thank you for a reasonable comment. Also it must be understood that Philly is the poorest large city, we don't have a lot of money. I see homeless people every day. It would be nice if people had more kindness in there hearts. Why can't they sit there and use the restroom? They are not bothering anyone. And there really aren't any public bathrooms that I know of in Philly.
6
I thought the two men were in real estate waiting for a client who appeared as they were being arrested. I don't believe they were homeless.
5
Bias training seems to mean "don't notice anything bad about blacks ever".
This is the 3rd article in this paper about this and I suspect it won't be the last.
There was only one article (an op-ed) about Jews getting kicked out the Gay Pride Parade in Chicago for displaying Stars of David. There was no ambiguity as to this being the reason for them being kicked out whereas in this case they refused to order or leave and it is questionable whether a white person would have had the same experience.
There was only one article mentioning that Asians were targeted in Ferguson. It was only one sentence in which a black man said black activists were pointing the mobs to Asian owned stores. One sentence.
There was only one article about how over 3 dozen congressmen, senators, and city council people are affiliated with Louis Farrakhan. It also mentioned Obama's photo with Farrakhan at a Black Congressional Caucus event. This went unreported for over 13 years, while this same paper was quick to report on any affiliation, no matter how loosely, Trump had with white racists.
The hysteria around perceived slights to blacks is in direct contrast to the open racism prominent black democrats, leftists, academics, activists openly flaunt. Cases involving perceived wrongs towards blacks that may (or may not) have a bigoted or biased component are obsessed about whereas wrongs by blacks that no doubt are bigoted, biased or unjust are commonplace and swept under the rug quickly.
23
I so wonder if this would have made the media frenzy if 2 white men would have insisted to ignore the company rules, refuse to listen to management and then defy local law enforcement. My guess it would only be a 3 line entry in the local paper ink blotter. I pity all remaining Starbucks managers----I say remaining because I'm sure a lot of them have resigned or certainly looking elsewhere for a company whose management stands firm on company policies.
19
@D.J. Yows: "My Guess is; they wouldn't have been arrested. They would never have been told they had to leave; they wouldn't have ever been approached; They no doubt would have been allowed to use the restroom: IF and a big IF there was a question about their presence: After explaining they were awaiting the arrival of someone in their party; they would have been left alone.
7
Two white men would have been allowed to use the restroom. That's the point.
9
Goodbye Starbucks! Your bathrooms just became open to ANYONE, not just paying customers. When I was a whole lot younger I got special treatment from many including police, clerks, teachers, doctors, lecherous old men, etc. Now that I am very old I get a different type of treatment and it is very noticeable. The thought police will NEVER succeed in erasing people’s instincts and prejududgments. For the record, the two young men were handcuffed and taken to jail because they refused to leave a private establishment when asked multiple times. Their choice: and a stupid arrogant one at that!
19
Starbucks is a public establishment...
Here's an idea, Starbucks: Why not promote more Blacks and non-whites to Managerial positions? -- or do you think they're only good enough to serve white customers?
Just saying....
2
Or Philadelphia could hire a black police chief who could shut down the force and give everyone racial training. Oh, wait, the chief is black and the police do receive racial training.
9
Do you live in Philly, do you really know what you are saying when you are talking about the Philadelphia police department?
How do you know they don't?
2
This is a human dignity story though black "leaders" and their white enablers have turned a regrettable event into a media circus and likely corporate payout to the aggrieved parties. An apology would have sufficed. Instead 8000 Starbucks are closing for "training" and the CEO is meeting the men who were removed, perhaps unfairly, by the police. The police did as asked. A low level manager made a poor decision - what was he thinking? At least the guys arrested acted with dignity.
This kind of event hurts every black by further prejudicing the rest of us in every way possible. For example, that blacks turn any opportunity into a shakedown or unfair advantage, that black "leaders" live for this nonsense, that petty insults become racial conflict, and worst, force employers, myself included, to ask ourselves whether the risk of hiring a black person is worth the downside risk. We will all be walking on ever more delicate eggshells. This is not about dignity. Want to be respected? Act respectable.
28
The men didn't act that dignified. They were asked to order something or leave. They refused to do either. I would have done one or the other without a fuss. It's not unreasonable.
31
If these men were waiting for someone to arrive and join them for coffee, why didn't one of them order a coffee while they waited? The local Starbucks in Chico is often crowded; people keep tables occupied with one cup of coffee, a laptop, books, etc. I have never seen any one of them kicked out for using a busy, crowded coffee shop as a home office. Common sense would have welcome; order a cup of coffee, tell the barista you are waiting for someone to join you for coffee. This seems like a staged event.
12
I have been going to SBUX around the country ‘forever’. Almost all, but not all, allow u to camp out. Laptops, meetings, homework, online courses, online meetings, et al.
Most in NYC area are staffed by people of all colours (as is the population). Only time I have ever heard an announcement that seats in a sbux were for patrons only was in NYC’s Penn Station at the sbux next to the A C E subway station. Not a big deal not to camp out in a place where they ask u not to.
As for Philly, I find a lot more whispering racism there. I have worked in that town & lived outside of there not too long ago. Whispering racism to me is those people that pretend to be one way but whisper their true feelings. Suffice it to say I didn’t stay around there long.
So this incident happening in Philly is no surprise.
3
This is a perfect display of a complete lack of common sense. On the part of the Manager, but especially of the Police. The manager should have politely and calmly explained the policy of making a purchase, OR leaving. And the Police entirely lacked common sense. Just because someone at a Business calls you to their location, does NOT mean you do what THEY want. The policemen should have made very clear that the only options ONCE they arrived, was to leave or be arrested. No charges were filed.
Stupidity all around. Again, there were NO valid charges here.
5
Politically correct move to appease the politically correct.
Everyone else sees the lack of manners.
32
It kind of undercuts any sympathy for them one might have had if in fact they really did have to go to the bathroom so bad that they couldn’t wait to buy anything that they just sat there then. At least pretend to run outside and look for a tree, or something, rather than just sit down there with a big smug grin trying to provoke a response. When I go that morning to Starbucks and find mine closed for this training, i’s not Starbucks I’m going to be mad at.
28
You brought up a point that hadn't been mentioned. If they had to go so badly why did they choose to be arrested rather than leave when the cops gave them that option? After all that delayed their ability to use a bathroom by a long time.
17
Maybe they could not afford to buy something. Did you consider that?
2
Starbucks isn't a place to go if you cannot afford a cup of coffee. Libraries always have bathrooms; could they have gone to a library?
10
I find it truly asinine that people are commenting that there was no racial bias. Absolutely there was racial bias. As other commenters have pointed out, sitting in a Starbucks while right, seems to be quite all right. However, waiting for a colleague to attend a business meeting is considered 'loitering' if you are Black. Systemic racism in America is alive and well - and sadly by some NYT's readers.
12
Excellent.
4
While some white (and black) people say they have been allowed to use the bathroom without ordering others say they have not. I have seen incidents where blacks have spewed anti-Asian or anti-Jewish racist slurs at their victim and black activists still claim it wasn't racist.
19
I hate to tell you this but I have been run out of places before for sitting at a table white without ordering anything. Maybe it was because I am gay, that must be it. Not the fact that I had ordered anything yet.
12
To every single person here who "doesn't understand why Starbucks is closing their stores for sensitivity training," you don't get it and you probably never will... Because you don't want to get it. You don't get what it's like to be African-American, living in America because you're not African-American. What Starbucks is doing needs to be be done. I cannot tell you how many times I've gone to a Starbucks to spend money and have experienced some form of racism, whether suttle or overt. This is everyday life for a black person. This is one isolated incident of racism at its finest that happened to be caught on camera. I'm sure you're all aware of the saying, "Until you walk in a man's shoes..." Just saying.
10
Then why do you keep going back to a place that treats you like that? Am I to believe that there is not an African-American run coffee shop in all of NYC?
9
This is an overreaction. If you do not pay, you should not be allowed to stay. Period. Regardless of sex, race, etc.
31
Joe Smally, simply said. That should appear on all restaurant signage and policies and be enforced.
1
So there are millions of white people lollygagging in Starbucks over the years without being dragged out in handcuffs. It sounds like those two chaps were merely waiting for a third to show up. Good grief.
Let's not forget the police commissioner Richard Ross who illustrates for us that the Blue Line is just as dysfunctional as racism. You really want to stand by an arrest of two real estate developers sitting and waiting for their friend? You can do better. Well, hopefully.
10
Is a white person at a Starbucks who does not buy anything and refuses to leave after multiple demands less likely to be arrested than a black person?
The knee-jerk comment crowd (cue the shout down that everyone is a racist who disagrees with anything they say) just "knows" the answer. Know statistically meaningful information needed. All you need is Outrage and a contempt for science and sound analysis.
9
The answer is yes. The point is that the white people would have never been asked to leave. The statistics are already out there, you just have to read them.
I am a 6' blonde, blue-eyed, well educated son of the American revolution, not a day goes by when I don't realize what a leg up that gives me. It also gives me great empathy for lives I cannot even imagine living from my standpoint. Empathy, and trying to be a force for change feels a lot better than anger. Try it.
8
Don't drink Starbucks coffee...don't even go there...
3
The main race problem with Starbucks is how few there are in black areas. It seems to me that the big wigs are the ones most in need of racial bias training.
2
Businesses do have the right to expect purchases in exchange for use of the facilities. But there are a couple of issues for thought here. One is the sheer lack of public restrooms in the US .... and who hasn't had a moment of desperation ... Another is the inconsistency of stores in applying this policy. I've been on plenty of group bicycle rides where Starbucks is the only facility in the area and riders queue up to use the bathrooms, many without making purchases, and staff have never said anything. Perhaps they know it's gaining the store future goodwill. Or perhaps it makes a difference when the majority of queuers are white women ....
7
Starbucks is there to sell coffee, not provide seating and restroom accommodations for anyone with a chip on their shoulder. That’s what the bus bench outside is for.
25
It's lousy coffee anyway.
6
Starbucks has 8000 stores?! Maybe that's part of the problem.
5
A lot of people of all colors hang out for long periods of time frankly just taking up space - sometimes two tables to park their laptops - from the paying customers. When I mildly complained to the gal taking our order she said 'oh we don't tell our customers to only use one table.' I say: Somethin' skwewy goin' on awound hewr. Never have that problem at DD!!
8
If I go to a Starbucks I never stay, just take something out (unless I'm with someone, which is very rare). I have wondered why so many people are sitting around with their laptops in a noisy uncomfortable environment. I do notice a wide variety--young, old, black, white, Asian, latino, etc. drinking or eating Starbucks coffees, pastries, etc. , so I wonder how many people don't purchase anything and are just allowed to sit there. Is it that prevalent?
It is interesting that this terrible act of overt racism should occur in a city which is composed of a fairly large percentage of African-American citizens.
As for Starbucks, the coffee I brew at home is better than theirs, and we have wireless in our apartment.
3
Many new signs in establishments now say, “Restrooms are for customers only. Access code will appear on sales receipt from card reader.” And as a sidebar: whatever happened to those self-contained, self-cleaning, unisex, public toilets like they have in Europe?
5
Drug dealers took them over.
3
Yesterday, I was in Boston waiting for a friend to finish the marathon. While waiting, I needed to use the bathroom and being desperate, I walked into the hotel I was near. I asked the person at the desk if I could use the bathroom in the lobby and he said are you a guest? I said no and he said then you can't use the bathroom. I left and found a porta potty.
I am an older white woman. The hotel worker was an African American man. Was it racism? No, it was a person doing his job. Is there racism in our country. Of course, but not every situation is so clear cut as all of those outraged about what happened at the Starbucks in Philadelphia.
42
Your mistake was asking a rigid, petty hotel clerk, regardless of his race, if you could use the restroom.
People with a little power often abuse others with it. I'd have just walked right into the restroom without asking.
If Will Smith or Oprah Winfrey or Beyonce was in there, do you think they would have been asked to leave or denied the use of the bathroom for not buying something? I don't think so. No way would those employees have threatened to arrest Beyonce. You see, Starbucks isn’t racist. These guys weren’t asked to leave because they were black. They were asked to leave because they were perceived as being poor. Starbucks doesn’t like poor people.
7
I almost agree with what you said. The black folks you mentioned are in the 1% of the 1%. They aren't nobodies-just like you or me. So it wasn't race, it might be a little social class, but even more than common place people get treated common, unless they are black and make a scene which causes a nationwide uproar. There are worse indignities that people of all races-including blacks-face everyday. Only white on black slights get this much advocacy.
4
If Oprah Winfrey walked in, she would have walked up to the counter and shouted, Everyone gets a cup of coffee....and a trip to Australia.
Starbucks does not like poor people? They sure are bending over backwards to employ homeless vets when no one else will.
5
and what's your point ? Starbucks is a business not a charity.
Hilarious. The most PC and culturally/racially sensitive corporation on the planet makes a mistake and is suddenly portrayed in media as if it were the KKK. And instead of just saying the whole event was a regrettable product of misunderstanding, miscommunication, and bad judgment on the part of a local manager, it decides to shut down hundreds of its franchises in order to reeducate (in classic CP style) the local employees. Time for Howard Schultz to make a comeback.
27
Your post made me wonder: What if they tried this complaint against Chick-Fil-A?
Sorry, everyone, but, despite Starbuck's massive corporate mea culpa, I have to side with the Starbucks employee on this one. If, when the employee said that the restrooms were for customers only, the two black gentlemen had simply said, "We'd be happy to order something, but could we use the restroom first?", everything would have been fine. They would have, at worst, overpaid for a cup of coffee.
The two men had every opportunity to show they were customers by buying something, and didn't. I'd have asked them to leave, too. When asked to leave, they refused. That's asking for it, no matter what your color is.
With all the real racism out there, voter suppression, false convictions, and black folks being executed for breathing-while-black, all the indignant Social Justice Warriors can surely find better targets than a coffee shop insisting it exists to sell coffee. That would be hard work, though, unlike "piling on" on Starbucks.
34
This is an enormous about of anti-Semitism and anti-Asian racism that is flaunted by prominent black leftists including democratic politicians, activists and media figures.
11
Suppose two white guys sit down in Starbucks, say they are waiting for a friend and use the men's room in the meantime. I'd bet that no one would have approached them, no less call the police. Racism hasn't gone away yet. MLK is rolling over in his grave.
12
Black person: I went to Starbucks in Philadelphia in April 2018 and was told I had to buy something to use the restroom.
White person: I went to Starbucks in Tucson in January 1996 and was allowed to use the restroom without having to buy something.
Media and activism: See?! This proves how racist America still is towards blacks and how white privilege exists!
(somehow if dozens of other white people state they had to buy something to use the restroom somehow it doesn't matter. Only one white person has to claim they were treated difference (in a better way) than a black person in a similar circumstance for an incident to be judged proof positive racism.
10
You're deliberately using isolated incidents from which to falsely generalize.
Racism affects black people almost every day, in massive ways you apparently cannot even imagine.
The media only picks up on a few such as this. It's far, far less than the whole picture.
This training thing is a bit too much. Not necessary. You have to keep it at simple, direct and visible actions. Don't put out silly statements like when the CEO said that their training or policy was ambiguous or something to that effect.
6
Is Starbucks going to run the same training for it's staff outside the US?
Why would it need to? Most other countries don't have the same race issues.
1
Your joking right Max? Ever been outside the country? If you think race isn't an issue in other countries I've got a great bridge in NY city to sell you.
6
Moira,
I wrote "most" and "same". You need to learn to read. Each country deals with their issues in different ways and have different sources and histories.
1
Has the entire world gone mad? Since when is it acceptable behavior to sit around in a restaurant and not purchase anything?
41
White people do it all the time. My husband just told me he did so for four or five hours last week while helping someone with their computer. He doesn't drink coffee and didn't want anything to drink so he ordered nothing. No one said a word to him. Nor ever would.
White people don't have a clue.
9
Rae--Your husband may have refrained from buying anything, but did the person he was helping purchase anything? Don't tell me they both sat there for four or five hours without buying a thing and someone didn't notice and/or object? If so, that's wrong, no matter who you are.
The guy he was helping was there for probably had a drink but it wouldn't have mattered if BOTH of these white men sat there for hours. No one in the Starbucks they went to would have said a word to them.
You consider this a moral issue ("it's wrong"). I'm simply saying that white people sit in Starbucks regularly without ordering. In my opinion it's wrong to not let the public use the restroom if you are a public establishment (and big company) like Starbucks that sells fluids. That we have few public bathrooms in our increasingly-privatized country falls onto the shoulders of huge companies like Starbucks who sell drinkable fluids.
Seems to be more of a bathroom policy issue than a race issue. Most Starbucks, Peets, McDonalds, grocery stores, etc, had no issue with people using the restroom without buying anything. There is no policy at Starbucks against Black folks, which is probably why it's a good idea to train their employees that if they are going to tell someone they can't use the bathroom make sure it is a straight White male.
10
"Loitering" is part of the Starbucks brand and business/service model. It is the main reason they are able to charge 8 or 10 bucks for a product we can all make for ourselves at home for pennies on the dollar. People go in,plug in, unfold a New York Times sip on a warm beverage and stay awhile. Before they know it they have spent 20 or 30 bucks. This is how SBUX makes all that profit. These 2 Black men did not one thing wrong. They were waiting for another party to arrive for a meet up BEFORE ordering or going to another location.They could not leave when asked because their party had not arrived yet. He shows up just in time to see his friends arrested(sad and ironic). If Starbucks wants its consumers to "Hurry up and buy", they should post signs clearly stating this change in the business model to ALL customers entering their stores. At that point they become just like 7/11 which has cheaper and tastier coffee anyway.
7
They couldn't leave when asked because their friend had not arrived? They could have stood outside the front door waiting for him.
10
Tom,
Remind me again never to patronize any business you have.
1
In other words,putting in place a policy that perhaps never existed?
Will this include my local Starbucks right in the heart of it all:Seattle?
This incident struck me because something slightly similar but not in comparison happened to me at the very SB I frequent in my neighbourhood. I'm a regular and familiar to some of the baristas.Not unlike any busy day,I was in line ahead of 3 patrons.Ordered hot chocolate.10 mins-in-waiting, same 3 customers with larger orders theirs first.I wait another minute and approach 2 idle employees to ask how long it would be and the older employee barks at me, meanwhile her counterpart looks on then away.I say nothing, step back as this older employee murmurs to her coworker then continue standing idly awaiting the next customer who walks in.
Another few mins later, a barista comes in from the back,she seems to have noticed my wait and asks what I had ordered.She apologizes for the wait and begins making my order.A SHORT hot chocolate which I finally get 17 mins later.
I neglected to mention, those customers served ahead of me were all caucasian. I live in a predominantly white neighbourhood. I thought nothing of it, but then again, this is the very same neighbourhood that I had a group of young AMZ professionals, my age,call me the N-word while walking home last summer. It might seem like nothing to some but unless you've live through subtle or blatant cues that show bias, it's hard to understand.
11
People need to know the facts before they shout about this being racism on the part of the Starbucks employee. According to what I heard right after this story came out, the two men became combative after they were told they couldn't use the bathroom, and that's why the police were called. Of course that part of the story has now disappeared. The video that was tweeted showed nothing at all about what happened before these two men were arrested, it only showed them being arrested.
20
If we could fix the systemic racism issues in this country with one day of training, wouldn’t we be doing this everywhere?
This is nothing more than a performance by Starbucks. I’m disappointed by the way this is being handled. All that needs to be done is to fire the employ and to publicly apologize. There’s no need to put on a show. This move really demonstrates that they’re more worried about their reputation rather than potential racism within their company.
2
How about instead of wasting all the time and money on useless training, they keep the stores open and donate a days receipt to charity?
2
As a white male I can't say if Starbucks or any chain has a racial-bias for non customers access to restrooms. May be because I never asked to use restrooms without ordering anything in a place where restrooms are for paying patrons only.
There are many of places in Philadelphia with public access to the restrooms, the whole story does not add up.
13
It was a setup. They must have gotten there LONG before their buddy was supposed to meet them in order to have words with a manager, have the manager call police, wait for the police to get there, and have the police repeatedly ask the guys to leave. ONLY when they are being handcuffed does the friend suddenly appear.
I live in Seattle and if you call the police and tell them that some guy wont leave the store because he cant use the bathroom, they will take their sweet time getting there hoping everything resolved itself before they have to get out of the car. These guys must have been in that Starbucks quite a while just hanging out.
10
Since we have not heard from the female employee, we are to assume she let white non-customers use the bathroom, but not black non-customers. Which is clearly wrong. I think a company must decide between "Customers Only" or being the men's room at Port Authority. In regards to calling the police, I would be curious to hear from her... Apparently, she told two men that the restroom is for customers only, and then rather than purchase something or leave because they had a bathroom emergency, those men sat down... Is it possible that this female employee felt threatened and feared for her safety?
10
How can 8,000 stores get some kind of meaningful training in a four hour window all at the same time? This is not a meaningful exercise.
1
I'm white but always dress down (sloppy) on a non-work day in NYC. Still, I have never, ever been asked to leave a table at Starbucks (even after spending only $6 in two hours, on avg.), or asked to buy more items, or refused the ladies room if I was just popping in to use it and bought nothing. Something happened in Philly, and it does need to be addressed and I applaud Starbucks for taking it so seriously. Not everyone in the US or State government seems to be taking racism that seriously, it seems.
9
Many restaurants, bars, coffee shops in Chicago have signs staying restrooms are for customers only and this rule is enforced. I've been denied access if I don't first buy something. The problem with this situation is someone was being unreasonable. In any event, the police should not have arrested the men for loitering.
8
So as far as I can tell, these men were asked to leave because they were not customers. They didn’t take either of the two options they had available to them to resolve the situation (buy something or leave). The store manager was within his rights to call the police. Maybe it did start bc of racism (although there has been no evidence of that other than an assumption that it MUST have been). Either way, the escalation was 100% the fault of these two men. Sorry, they would have had my sympathy if they had just bought a cup of coffee.
35
As additional good news, harried & exhausted retail workers will get a much more slow paced day to experience some paid training.
6
Very good decision. I don't know if it has been done yet ,but a personal apology from the CEO to the two wrongly arrested gentlemen would also be a very good idea.
4
It's an overreaction to an overreaction. This wasn't a lunch counter in 1963, and nobody refused to serve these two men, it was they who refused to order.
I was a barista in my youth, and dealing with loiterers is simply part of the job, but I never called the police except when they were being unruly or threatening to legitimate customers. Personally, when I meet up with people at coffee shops, I consider it good manners to wait until they arrive before ordering.
25
How long did they wait though? I've heard conflicting reports- 15 minutes or 2 hours. That is a big difference.
4
Well, I think of it this way: The man the two arrested men were to meet showed up pretty quickly and protested their arrest. So, I doubt ths man was two hours late, but closer to a few minutes. Just my observation.
4
You contradict yourself.
1
The worst reaction to this incident would be to assume, hope, opine that Starbucks is the only coffee shop, restaurant, business, institution that is capable of practicing racism against black men. Racism is an American problem, and those who want to limit its existence by attaching it to one franchise of one business, do so at the peril of all of us.
Starbucks has the potential to be the proverbial "point of the spear" and to set an example for all American businesses, restaurants, colleges, schools, churches, and coffee shops. Good for them. May others follow their example.
5
I find it odd that the article doesn't mention how only moments before this incident, a white man was given the code to the restroom who also did not make a purchase. This is what spurred the outage and was the main focus of the video, and it feels like a key detail that NYT left out... I've been disappointed with their coverage on racial issues in the past, so I'm doubting this wasn't intentional unfortunately.
15
Grace, I hadn't read that. Thanks so much for posting that, I'll look for it online.
That was a totally separate incident several days later.
5
Anytime we the people can be presented with another example of skin color being used to justify intolerance and ignorance, it's an unfortunate, yet good thing. That it happened in a big city like Philadelphia is astounding, but sadly there's still a significant portion of the country's population which will never acknowledge there's a problem as they try to make America white, I mean great, again.
8
They could have just ordered coffee like everyone else in the establishment. I wouldn't have the nerve to sit in a restaurant and take a seat that is reserved for paying customers. So I guess now as a result, all the homeless people will be able to sit in Starbucks without buying anything. Race hustlers at it again.
28
The two men should have obeyed the cops. All they had to do was purchase a coffee and end the incident right there.
27
Or they could have left. They refused to do either.
22
Well, why should they leave? They were meeting a business associate who was late. Why couldn't they just sit & wait, if not use the restroom? I'm white, I've done that a dozen times all over the country when someone I was meeting was late. I've never been asked to leave. That's the point here, I think. They wanted to buy coffee after their friend arrived. It makes sense. I don't order food if I'm waiting for friends until they arrive.
4
How many people writing with a certainty of total understanding of what happened in a single Starbucks have reflected on how hard it is to understand complicated events occuring right in front of you. I do not know why this employee felt she needed to call the police to get these men removed from the store; I don't know why the police felt the need to handcuff these men and remove them from the store; I don't know why the men insisted on using a bathroom when they were told they had to be cutomers, but they must not have to go too bad if they then sat down at a table to wait for the police to arrive. I don't need to hypothesize and story tell to know that boycotting a business for the idiotic, and perhaps racist behavior of one employee seems like overkill to me, or that the corporate response of Starbucks is more than adequate in my view. The only group that has not demonstrated an appropriate response appears to be the police. Also, including Mr. Orchard's letter as a Times pick seems strange; some demonstration of having read the story should be required of letter writers to recieve this "honor".
10
More training to better avert racial bias certainly would seem in order, especially for police departments such as Philadelphia.
Furthermore if funds [ invested in analyses, engineering specifications, medical research, emotional counseling, press reporting, political debates and (especially) legal fees ] connected with defining which genders are allowed to use which restrooms, and with which labellings etc. were instead allocated for constructing and staffing all-genders public restrooms in inner cities, that might do even more to help prevent such incidents in the future. Starbucks might donate funds for this too, as a way to assist in the sanitary disposal of caffeine from its products.
2
It's mind-boggling that police showed up in response to this particular call.
That said, I have always trained my kids to buy something, however small, if they need to use a bathroom while we're traveling or shopping. It's just common courtesy.
14
They were waiting for a friend.
2
Apparently, common courtesy is not taught in all families
2
The police were called because these gentlemen had been asked to leave and refused to do so. They were asked by the police and would not leave voluntarily; so, what's left? The cops leave and tell them to have a nice day? These men made a choice to have it ugly, instead of easy, and I have no sympathy for them, or this vastly overblown controversy.
6
If I were the employee, and two men came in, didn't make a purchase, and wanted to use the bathroom, yes, it raises suspicion no matter the color of their skin. These men were old enough to know better or should have. Buy a cup of coffee. I wouldn't go to a Starbucks and sit around or use the bathroom without a purchase - common sense. In these times of shooting sprees and crime fatal to defenseless people just going to school or doing there job, adults be wiser. I am disappointed in Starbucks to offer an apologie so quickly without at least explaining what the employee was thinking. How long had the men sat there? It just seems like we are not getting the full picture. Recently in the Wall Street Journal an article stated that MLK Jr's message was "take responsibility for your actions". Seems like Starbucks is more afraid of losing $ and providing a quick fix. Yes do the training, but if I worked there and 2 men came in and I felt threatened, I would call the police.
22
Has anyone claimed to feel threatened though? Haven’t read that anywhere. Witnesses statements and the video support the fact that these guys were not behaving in a threatening manner. So a better way to think about this would be to question why one assumes they were a threat in the first place.
3
Why did she feel threatened. Because they were black.
2
Maybe because they were men.
Why should anybody be allowed to use the facilities in a private company if they don’t buy anything?
I’ve bought a coffee numerous times just to use a bathroom. But I guess that’s just me, I respect the fact that Starbucks is paying a high rent for its real estate and I don’t feel entitled to break the rules.
It seems these outrage issues frequently start by an individual who thinks the rules don’t apply to them.
47
Good for you. Plenty of people don't buy coffee just to use the bathroom (or at least not before using the bathroom), and they don't get the cops called on them. I suppose you think one shouldn't be able to wait in a bar for one's friend without ordering a drink before they arrive.
14
So you’ve never in your life run into a McDonald’s to use the restroom while in the road without buying something first? You’ve never sat at a restaurant and waited for your friend to show up before ordering? Nobody’s ever offered to buy you a coffee and you got there first?
Imagine being in that situation except you get arrested for it. Really put yourself there. It’s terrifying.
7
About 15 years ago when I was a stroller-using person, the only place in the city that had an accessible bathroom was Starbucks. As a parent of a small child, Starbucks could be counted on for a no-questions-asked bathroom.
Sometimes I’d buy something and not use the restroom; sometimes I’d just use the restroom.
Human beings need public places to meet up, and we all also need to be able to relieve ourselves without paying upwards of three dollars.
13
At any point did the two gentleman inform the employees that they were waiting for someone? Seems like this whole situation could have been avoided with some simple communication.
If someone came in to my business and just sat there, refused to buy anything, and then refused to leave after they were asked, I would call the police too.
46
Yes, this occurred to me, too. I would have probably called the police if two men refused to leave the premises. This comes from wariness about male violence in general. Racial bias probably made this situation worse, but I can't fault the employee's "common sense."
18
One report said they were there 15 minutes, another said 2 hours. This makes a big difference to me. The first is reasonable the second is not.
5
To all of all of the haters and commenters skeptical of their intentions, kudos to Starbucks for taking immediate and decisive action.
They don’t have to close for a day of training and instead could have relied on managers and printed training materials and the CEO doesn’t have to make a trip to apologize and many companies and CEOs wouldn’t.
I’ve had years of experience with Starbucks and have a daughter with significant disabilities.
With few exceptions, their partners have been nothing but kind and accommodating whether we’ve ordered something or just hung out. And the few exceptions might have just been someone who was grumpy or having a bad day.
This was stupid bigoted human error of one individual and they are doing the right thing and the incident is by no means an indictment of the company.
100
I have been following this story and I totally appreciate the difficulties and problematic inter-group issues. I am not sure what each individual's intentions were in the Philadelphia Starbucks store. It is impressive that the company is stepping up to do the right thing to promote civility in our communitites.
In Tucson where I frequent my Starbucks shop I have observed the staff to be good communicators and respectful of their clientele. I have observed staff to be helpful and to extend themselves to their clients whether they are Latino, White, or Black. We need more companies like Starbucks.
6
Really? Try taking your daughter to a black part of town and a black run business and see what the response is. I don't find anything stupid or bigoted about the incident. If two white bikers had done the same thing she would have called the cops on them. Why doesn't someone give training to black customers to not act privileged.
1
Love the comment. I have a lovely bridge for sale. Any interest in buying it?
This is super embarrassing, but one day I had my period come on and the closest bathroom was a Starbucks. I went in and stood on line for a coffee (that I would not drink...I don’t drink coffee). I had blood dripping down my legs, and it never would have occurred to me to make a beeline for the ladies room without ordering something.
I do not understand the outrage.
44
I always go to the bathroom first at Starbucks. Who wants to bring their latte into the bathroom?
4
You can always use a Starbucks restroom without ordering anything. I d it all of the time
Most possibly correct and most probably too much information.
2
I was in a Starbucks in Silver Spring, MD this year (the managers were African American) where a homeless man became very ill in the bathroom. They responded with inordinate compassion, called the EMTs and accompanied by the police. The homeless person was known to all, and all performed in professional and humane ways to help him out.
Hmmmm...the managers were African American, that was a good thing...perhaps Starbucks should train and hire more.
10
Man, when you gotta go, you gotta go. Bus depots used to charge a quarter but I slipped under the stall. I believe people would clean up after themselves if there were chemicals to spray to disinfect. I would look to the Japanese for ideas but I believe that I remember they have a caste system ( undesirables).
3
i had diversity training 20 years ago. good for you Starbucks, alittle late , but good for you.
1
Starbuxx can’t have it both ways. Either it’s a “third place” where people are invited to stay and "hang out" with or without making any (or additional) purchases or it’s a business that caters to PAYING customers. I remember my grandfather, who owned a neighborhood store telling me, “A customer doesn’t necessarily buy anything, but a paying customer does.”
4
I live in Greensboro, NC, home of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. I am white. Every employee I have EVER seen at the museum is Black. I have paid to visit the museum 3 times. I was walking around downtown and went into the museum to use the bathroom which is in the vestibule, PRIOR to where only people who have paid to visit the museum may enter. I was blocked from using the bathroom by the black staff. Was this a racist incident? Was it reasonable for them to block me from using the restroom in a museum which the City of Greensboro helps to support with public tax dollars? I cannot be sure, but I had a feeling that if I was Black I would have been allowed to use the restroom.
43
How can you teach people common sense. You either have it or you don't. You would be forgiven for thinking this episode happened in 1960s Alabama. No. This happened in 2018. In Philadelphia. I mean wow. And training will change things? If you need training for this it's a lost cause already.
4
They were sitting in the store, wanted to use the bathroom but were told they'd have to order something, they went back to sitting there then were told they'd need to buy something or leave. They refused to do either. Nothing like 1960s Alabama.
My local Starbucks allows people to sit there without buying anything and it's a magnet for the "meth" crowd. It's why I don't go there. I realize different locations have different rules. I would never go into a café or restaurant and not buy something. On many occasions I have bought something I did not really want so I could use the bathroom, the Wi-Fi, or simply to get out of the house. I sometimes do see people using cafes (not just Starbucks) for workspace without buying anything, and it's obvious they are not destitute. To call it bad manners is an understatement. Businesses are not public services. I guess it's partially Starbucks fault for trying to come across as one though.
12
I get your point. What I am saying is very different. A place like Starbucks almost always has customers that spend a good deal of time doing stuff before they order anything. Many don't order anything at all. Starbucks touts itself as a third place, a community place. And it is for that reason that they give the benefit of the doubt to the customer. When you give the benefit of the doubt to certain customers and not to others then you are discriminating. And that is what happened in this instance. I see a lot of people here advocating that people perusing a business have to engage in a purchase as a quid pro quo. But that's not what Starbucks says about itself though, and everyone knows and understands it. There are also people saying that they don't understand what the fuss is all about in this instance. Well, it's discrimination pure and simple. What's not to understand?
1
I've frequented Starbucks for years. I have seen persons of all colors, classes, nationalities and means buy coffee and leave, buy coffee and hang, and hang and buy nothing. Sometimes the bathrooms are open, sometimes locked. I've never once witnessed the staff - always diverse, attentive and courteous - disrespect anyone, whether a paying customer or not. What happened in Philly was isolated, and not indicative of a systemic racial bias problem at Starbucks. Is Starbucks' reaction and it's implication a good thing? Will it advance race relations? I'm not so sure about that.
22
The only thing it advances is the idea people have to walk on eggshells around blacks and the perceived slights towards them are far more important that incidents involving any other race. I see from the photo that the city council has gotten involved. I notice Democrats are very quick to butt into incidents of perceived slights towards blacks but incidents such as when black democratic city councilman Marion Barry proclaimed "the dirty Asians have got to go!" after being reelected a couple years before his death, they were silent. I notice that. I notice it's a systemic norm not a random oversight. I resent it very much and it has made me weary of the Democratic party.
6
I'm a preppy white guy in 600 dollar shoes. I get told "restrooms are for customers" about 50% of the time I ask. I'm white, male, and look rich. I sound educated. Still, I get turned away half the time.
If and when I use a restroom at a gas station before I pump, I make sure to inform the clerk that I will buy gas or a power bar after I use the restroom. Or, if I have already pumped gas, I point to my car outside, say I just bought gas, and then ask if I can use the restroom.
33
Gas stations don't feature arm chairs and promote themselves as gathering places to socialize and/or conduct business.
5
I and my daughter are frequent fillers - I with regular coffee, she with drinks with fancy names and big price tags. I have also been known to linger, even loiter (without intent). All that made me outraged by the arrests. BUT Starbucks seems to have risen to the occasion. No mealy-mouth, I am sorry IF someone was offended - but a straight forward, clear response and an effort to move not past but ahead. It would have been better had the incident not occurred but the response is good - may we all learn how to act in this way. So, I'm off to get some (regular) coffee.
12
Hey, NYT, where's the story on the overzealous police? As far as I'm concerned, they need some major training too! I see no stories at all about the officers who arrested this man... how did they get off so easily? Why were they so gung ho to arrest these men?
19
Are you aware that trespassing is a crime? Maybe it's not in NYC, (just one more reason I would never want to live there) but surely you realize that it IS against the law in most of the country.
7
And where are the stories -- even an ongoing series -- about the failure of law enforcement in this country, the militarization, and the murders with impunity of innocents on a regular basis? None of our major media dare to investigate too closely. I imagine they fear for their lives, because 'accidents' do happen. Just not as obviously as they do in other corrupt nations.
4
As someone who has worked in the service industry for 300 years, I can tell you one reason white people get away with stuff in restaurants/coffee shops is because they behave badly. They will break rules ("What are YOU gonna do about it?") and then complain (and threaten your job) when they're called on it. That's like the first rule of being a Bad White Customer: threaten to get this poor minimum wage worker fired. Most places, managers make very little and are under immense pressure, so they do whatever the obnoxious person wants and hope that's the end of it. This Starbucks thing in a nutshell: I noticed a pattern in our establishment where most white non-customers would just roll in and assume they can use the bathroom, while every black non-customer would stop and ask permission... I only make minimum wage, but I think that might be white privilege.
21
8000 stores to close for a day for an anti-bias training regimen? This single incident was blown way out of proportion by millions hopping on the hate wagon of viral, social media. I find it unsettling how one overzealous (possibly, racially biased) employee can spark such a tidal wave of destructive, self-righteous indignation.
16
I think it's the police who should undergo the sensitivity training, racial and otherwise. They acted completely inappropriately here and instead of de-escalating the situation just made it worse.
In my experience I have found the police arrogant, not listening, disconnected from the public and with their minds made up about a situation regardless of all the facts. As in the Starbucks incident, they often seem about one inch from being angry if the person in question doesn't speak to them in just the right way and tone.
Police have a difficult job but that's why they're the police - it takes the right type of person, the right frame of mind, rigorous training and close supervision. What we don't need are officers on a power trip that have forgotten the part about serving the public.
20
"As in the Starbucks incident, they often seem about one inch from being angry if the person in question doesn't speak to them in just the right way and tone."
Sure, but you are obligated (by social rules) to speak to police in exactly the right way and tone. Police are not regular people. When a cop interacts with you, he is your superior. He's like your boss. My income is way higher than a cops income, but a cop is still my superior any time I interact with one. I can own cars a cop cannot afford. I can buy homes a cop cannot afford. I have attended grad school. Most cops have not. In terms of income and education, I am very much superior to almost all police officers. However, by virtue of the power invested in them, in any interaction, a cop is my superior.
Cops serve the public by protecting the public from bad elements within the public. I am not a huge fan of the police, but they are first and foremost protectors. The word "serve" is not entirely accurate. They don't bring me my breakfast on a tray. They protect me from violence and property theft.
4
they are also supposed to protect your rights. i think you have everything exactly backwards. if cops viewed themselves as servants, just like the guy with breakfast on a tray, we would be much better off. that doesn't mean his job is different, he just remembers who he is serving. that doesn't mean he has to take orders from a lawbreaker. but he has to remember he serves the public not rules the public.
2
Not in black neighborhoods. They police the people rather than protect them.
I get that the manager considered them to be loitering and called the cops. But go to any Starbucks in downtown Manhattan and most of the people there are young, white hipsters (or wannabes) using the wifi and the bathrooms and literally pouring the milk into cups TO DRINK.
It is well-known to everyone - I think it even appears in tourist guides - that Starbucks may be the only free bathrooms in heavily tourist areas. What they should do is change the rules so that no one can use the wifi or bathrooms without purchasing something and put lock codes on the receipts to enforce it.
That said, I hope racial-bias training isn't just about whites treating blacks more fairly. Racial-bias training towards Asians would have made many of my encounters with service people growing up a little nicer.
89
I can verify. It is really annoying to those of us who are paying customers and would a) like a seat, and b) like to use the bathroom...once the hordes of non-paying people vacate. The problem is that Starbucks, at least in Manhattan, allows this behavior. It should be clearly stated: we are a business, not a public toilet or park. Then this policy should be enforced equally against all comers.
12
Or how about low income, unhip untrendy whites being treated fairly?
2
Ditto older woman with white hair who doesn't hear so well in noisy cafes with high ceilings. The faces servers make when you ask them to repeat something...I drink my tea at home now.
4
Is Starbucks going to pay to have the victims police records expunged? They were held for 9 hours and are now facing expensive legal bills to have their names cleared. Shame
14
They had a choice and they chose to be arrested. It is entirely on them.
1
So two men go into Starbucks with an urgent need to use to the restroom, are denied said use, and then sit down? For how long? Since they weren't waiting for service, what were they waiting for? If the urge was that great, why not go to another restaurant that allowed use of the bathroom, or as is common in large cities, use the closest alley?
Perhaps it its because I am a white female, but when I have been shopping a bit too long and find the closest shop with a bathroom, I have never been denied. Of course, on the way to the bathroom, I order a cup of tea or something. I don't expect a place of business to meet my biological needs for free.
Now 8k stores are are going to close and give racial bias training? My guess is that a number of baristas are going to enjoy a nice nap.
15
They were waiting for a third person, who happened to be white, for a business meeting. Dont know about you, but I've never had a problem waiting for people to join me before ordering. Who wants to sit there with their coffee or food getting cold til the entire party is there? I was taught it was polite that you dont start eating until everyone was served.
5
They were waiting for a friend.
2
Too bad some bystander didn't just buy two coffees, plunk them in front of the non-payers, and diffuse the situation. Those who feel that it's a right to use someone's commercial space as their own living room without paying "rent" in the form of a cup of coffee might learn something about social obligations.
31
You and I appear to be the only commenters with common sense.
I live in a college town with 5 starbucks, 2 located on campus and 3 in the city. None are locked. I have seen people come in and use their laptops and not buy anything, bring in outside food and maybe buy a coffee or tea and many people pop in just to use the bathroom. Also people waiting for others before ordering and of course quite a few, mainly white, use it as a semi-office, plugging in and sipping a tall coffee. The ones on campus are fair game for any thing goes by the customers (usually students and faculty but anyone can go) in that you not buy anything and sit for hours ( somewhat bigger than the usual corporate store).
Perhaps there are significant, legitimate concerns of managers in some urban locations in their bathrooms being used for other illegal activities but and this is the problem-how do you determine beforehand who is likely to engage in said activity and do you render judgement on likely activity on perhaps your own perceived biases. Neither of these two men were attempting to engage in any illegal activities and no contraband was found on their person ( after a search and cuff) and it turns out that a man did say he was to meet the two men.
Without knowing every detail and not being present, I believe the manager may have overreacted to perhaps past problems in that store by calling the police. I can see that Starbucks can have problems with non-paying customers but the key is to have a consistent policy for everyone.
11
The article states that Starbucks will "offer" anti-bias training to its employees. I very much doubt that it will be voluntary as the verb suggests.
The problem arose because of the conduct of one employee, and that person is no longer with the company. There does not seem to be a pattern of such behavior among other employees, and the "steps needed to fix it" are pretty obvious - don't do such things. This training appears to be company grandstanding intended to deflect the ferocious response that social transgressions always attract these days.
It is also an implied insult to these other employees, who have not demonstrated that they require "training" in order to act decently and responsibly.
5
Look how retailers can take immediate steps to try to repair systematic bias, once the issues are raised. Why do we tolerate lawmakers ignoring the problems?
5
It should be illegal for any establishment that serves the public to limit restroom use to its customers. Using the restroom is a basic human need. To limit restroom use to customers is inhumane. Furthermore, cities could and should do more to provide public restrooms in busy downtown areas so that all the burden is not on whatever local businesses happen to be in the area. This is 2018! This issue should have been dealt with a long time ago!
12
Wonderful! A coercive law like that would close thousands of restaurants in no time at all, for health reasons and also because paying customers would be grossed out and/or terrified by the non paying bathroom users.
8
Don’t stop there. We should make it a law that you also have to open your house to the peeing public.
In large cities places like McDonald’s and Starbucks often lock the bathrooms because of (homeless) kids looking to shoot up. Frequently the best place to panhandle is near the Starbucks on a busy strip, and...voila, now you get the locked door phenomenon. Instead of our country making laws about bathroom use it’d be great if we had addressed basic societal concerns like rampant drug addiction and homelessness.
6
It is not the duty of any private business to provide public restrooms. That falls fairly within what should be the realm of municipal government.
7
Why should all employees be punished for the acts of one or two employees? Closing all the stores is nothing but a PR stunt.
9
Why is this considered a punishment instead of an opportunity to educate and enlighten, a teachable moment? Isn’t that what this type of training is supposed to essentially be?
3
It's like Boot Camp, the DI finds a donut in one of the recruits lockers. Oh no! Now the entire platoon has to hold planks until whenever the DI feels like stopping.
Or some soldier caused trouble at a bar while deployed in Korea. Now all soldiers in the country have to stay on base or curfew is put through
2
@AS forcing people into "racial bias training" must start with the assumption all their employees are racists.
2
Would it have been possible for the police to have not simply accepted the employees assessment that there was a problem and said, "there's no crime here" and leave it to the people to work it out?
16
Will that fix the awful coffee?
I know it's not Dominos and "pizza" but given a choice people avoid it--because the coffee is awful. Yes, it's caffeinated.
Now true, I guess if you're white it's a good place to hang out for hours and use the free WiFi, though the company did take out the comfy chairs in my city.
Not such a great place to be black in public and expecting equal treatment by management though.
3
Dogma:
I'm not following your response.
Since I'm asking if closing 8,000 stores in the USA for a day is going to fix the coffee. I more than suspect it won't.
I guess you were responding to my last paragraph, but I'd not phrased that as a question.
A local Starbucks (there are so many!) has a shared restroom with a hair salon. Starbucks manages the restroom. Starbucks lets the non-purchasers, who need to wash up and often inject, use the shared restroom. Then when the salon people need it, they must deal with at best, a mess and at worse, a passed-out person. Here's an example of Starbucks going the other direction.
Ugh. Human judgement is hard.
7
I am relieved that due to the racial bias that occurred in the city of brotherly love, Star bucks has decided to shut 8,000 US stores (I did not know that there were so many Starbucks in the U.S. alone) for racial-bias training. I hope this will bring about a change in heart towards our diverse races and not just a standard operating procedure in Starbuck stores. I hope this type of racial-bias training spreads across the United States in both private and public institutions. We the American people have to embrace diversity and value everyone equally and gracefully. Color of the skin should not be the basis of judgement of other people but the content of their character.....MLK.
5
What happened in the south in the 60s is happening in the North (!!) 60 years later. Yes. Keep hoping.
I understand the whole “you need to buy something” thing. But, McDonald’s doesn’t have a problem. Burger King doesn’t have a problem. Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t have a problem. You want to know why? Because, these aren’t “mom-and-pop” operations. They are publicly traded companies. For all they know, those guys were shareholders of the company. If I was the CEO of McDonald's, I would be doing fist pumps in my office today over this. And then I would call up the CEO of Starbucks and laugh at him through the phone.
6
McDonalds are franchises.
I go to a DD al the time;
I buy coffee there and something else.
You would think they would let me use the bathroom they have.
They don't.
They say it is broken but somehow when a cop shows up it seems not to be broken.
I heard they were getting a lot of homeless people who used the room to wash themselves not to use the toilet.
They had to do what they did so don't tell me DD never does it.
The anecdotes are interesting, but I have yet to hear from anyone who's visited that specific store. What's the neighborhood like? Are white people allowed to use the restrooms without making a purchase? I have worked at businesses that have customer-only restrooms, and if someone was refusing to leave, then we had every right to call the police to have them removed. It was the smarter alternative to doing it ourselves.
To paraphrase my question: Where did the racial element come in here?
23
Glad the worker who called the cops is no longer employed there. I will not boycott the Starbucks in my neighborhood. Some of the employees there are African-American and a boycott may cause them to lose their jobs.
5
Making this about race is crushingly reductionist of service baristas provide during their busy days, their skill set, and not to mention we don’t know *why* this barista called the police.
8
You don't know why? Listen to the 911 call.
1
SBUX is a corporation, guided by a profit motive. Money speaks loudly, and they want to defuse the reactionary, "woke" mob that has them in their cross-hairs and is making their affluent, liberal customers think twice about picking up that grande, skinny, mochachino. Based on the comments and observations of white visitors getting access to the bathroom without a purchase, while blacks do not, it seems like there has been a need for training for some time. While I applaud them for finally recognizing the issue and doing something to make society more tolerant, it also reeks of a marketing stunt to appease the crowd with pitchforks so that their share price doesn't languish any more than it already has.
3
"The prosecutor’s office in Philadelphia reviewed the case and declined to pursue charges because of “a lack of evidence that a crime was committed,” according to a spokesman." This is not true according to Philadelphia's police commissioner. The police commissioner himself released a video saying that it was Starbucks that dropped the charges. The police commissioner also explained the situation how it happened and said it was lawful, the actions of the police, and further stated he had a police officer that was refused for attempting to use the restroom at Starbucks a year ago. The police commissioner is an African-American and you can watch the video on Facebook and elsewhere. He said the two gentleman being arrested acted unlawfully. Things are not always what they appear.
12
I don't know what actually happened but if a business has a buy stuff or you can't hang out, I would respect it. It's a two way street. As long as white and blacks are treated equally, no problem. Nowhere have I read where this is the question regarding this incident that is asked or the statement that is made. What's up? Do we need to react before we know what really happened. Starbucks may do what it can to change negative public opinion but really is that what it's really about?
RP
7
I am a African American female that has been in Starbucks plenty times just to use the restroom and get water never had a problem. It is the employees fault.
12
This is ridiculous. One isolated incident in one store does not mean there is a massive issue
40
nothing wrong with retraining . ive been through a thousand safety courses .Diversity in this day and age can not be under taught. there is alittle bigotry in all of us. you don't think you need , You probably DO.
3
I am a frequent customer of Starbucks. But, on some occasions, I have used Starbuck's restrooms even when I didn't purchase anything. They are clean, safe, and I know I will probaly buy something in the near future anyway, so what's the big deal ? I have never, ever been asked if I am buying anything.
Something really, really went wrong here, and one can't escape the notion that racial factors played a part in the situation.
I do object to the firing of the employee. His bad decision was the result of poor or improper training and he should not be a scapegoat for the company's failure to train employees properly.
And Starbucks, spare us the drama. Closing your stores for a day is a publicity gimmick.All we care about is that you make sure something like this never happens again.
109
They had to do SOMETHING because the local professional protesters were "refusing" to accept an apology by the CEO. Not the men who suffered the harm, but the local activists.
11
Starbucks is going to lose millions of dollars closing the stores for a day. It's not a gimmick. They reported $22.38B in revenue for 2017, but I imagine that's world wide. That's not chump change.
2
When my 14 year old Hispanic son was stopped in a "head shop" in our town and all but strip searched in front of everyone coming in and out of the store, because an employee saw something pink sticking out of his pocket that she assumed was shoplifted (it was his friend's ear buds she'd left in our car, and the employee didn't see him take something pink because he hadn't)... the owner said, "That can't have happened here -- we train our staff not to do that." Sometimes it's not about training. It's about an inexperienced, maybe unconsciously biased young person who acts before she thinks things through. But it always happens to brown people. No one has EVER stopped me accusing me of shoplifting, and I have actually taken things from stores by accident.
5
If Rosa Parks had not refused to surrender her seat in the front of the bus, then black Americans might still be riding in the back of the bus.
It is amazing to me how many ways some Times readers have to justify their racism.
9
A public bus (paid for by taxpayers) is not the same as a private establishment.
9
Black Americans are still riding in the back of the bus. What happened at the Starbucks in Philadelphia proves it.
4
And your point is? A public bus can discriminate while a private coffee shop can’t? That’s really, uh, sound reasoning.
2
It's revealing to read so many derisive comments made by White folks who can't comprehend the basic problem here. I've used restrooms in countless Starbucks all over the world, and oftentimes did not buy anything. Nobody ever denied me access to the restroom nor asked me to buy something or leave. Then again, I'm ... White. I detect latent racist attitudes lurking among far too many N Y Times self-professed "liberals". Kudos to Starbucks corporate management for taking steps to address the problem. The rest of you should also take time to reflect on your own experiences and attitudes.
17
I'm here for the free WiFi and the cuffs.Just kidding but the shop is there to make Money, it's a business. Let's not turn everything racial. Frequented many a Starbucks, put a sign up Customers only. We shouldn't let our disgust with DC carry over to our personal life. If everything is racist I'm put my Blinders back on. Peace and Go Eagles!
9
So was the manager who called in the "complaint" fired from Starbucks or merely reassigned to another Starbucks location?
What does the CEO have to say about the Torrance incident where a black man (who hadn't purchased anything) was refused access to the restroom but a white man who also hadn't purchased anything was granted access to the restroom? What is the non racist explanation for this disparate treatment?
2
Glad to hear the cops in Philly are busy keeping the violent and dangerous people out of Starbucks. Don't these police have more important assignments? Maybe they should be reassigned to a precinct in North Philly.
1
They were called there. The manager called them, and they are public servants to their job is to respond when someone needs them. If they hadn't gone, clearly you would look for and find some other reason to bash them.
5
Funny, in my Starbucks we have to share tables with everyone and anyone, the unclean, falling asleep, making noises. Also dogs! Guess what, that is illegal, but the baristas are so worried about questioning whether these are "service dogs," that all dogs are welcome, large dogs in the rain shaking off next to the food counter. What happened in Philly was wrong, I'm sure these guys will receive a nice settlement - and they should - but are we sure this is typical Starbucks treatment? It sure would never happen in my SB!
2
Good. Change takes many forms and having educational training experiences for all employees with a single policy statement that’s reinforced is the only way to share and inspire valuable behavior.
In California we have a law—any retail business that’s open to public must allow anyone to sit/stand without purchasing a product for 30 minutes. Then they can be asked to leave or purchase something; businesses can call the cops at the 30 minute mark. As long as the person does not disturb the peace, they can stay.
I was in my bank and a homeless elderly woman came in from the rain, sat down in a lobby chair then my banker said, she’s entitled to 30 minutes then she leaves. She comes in daily.
We know the rules in California, it seems like every other state should develop uniform rules too.
9
How do you know they weren't there for more than 30 minutes? And is Starbucks obligated to let you make their rules?
3
This is a very well meaning gesture meant to deal with a very real problem but the scholarly literature demonstrates that having strong policies and enforcing them will achieve more than any training.
24
Managers need to be trained to enforce policies without escalating to police involvement. In this case, there was no justification in calling the police. According to the report, those men accepted that they could not use the Rest Room. So, why make a big deal of forcing them to leave the restaurant. That manager's poor judgement has caused her employer to close restaurants, temporarily, and deal with bad publicity that will negatively affect sales. However, this event highlights a problem and creates an opportunity for future improvement. Hopefully, Starbucks will be better, after this experience.
2
What about the annoying customers who hook up for free WiFi for three hours while nursing a Grande Frackingchino? Starbucks is a place to be seen. It is a social experience where you meet friends. I do not see how these two men did anything out of the ordinary.
16
I think this has gotten a bit out of proportion. While it is commendable that the company is taking this seriously - Thoughtful attention to others feelings is always a positive..Really no one but the people involved knows exactly what happened and maybe they should be the ones to work it out. I don't know the manager..I don't know the two men..So how can I give a meaningful opinion? Also, really what this all says to me is we need more public restrooms in this country and if you have to use the restroom in a restaurant, just spend the 2 dollars and buy a coffee. Also my own anecdotal two cents worth - I'm a Hispanic woman and have never been told I can't use a restroom. My husband is white and he has been refused use of restrooms. I think a lot of times, it depends on who you ask - It's not necessarily racially motivated - It could be but back to the beginning - None of us really know.
9
Then let’s err on the side of caution, shall we? Do the training. Stop refusing bathroom facilities to anyone. If you have to go, you have to go. Can’t even find a bathroom at service stations anymore. Sad.
2
This must the day for fragile, unaware white people to ruminate about all of the potential ways that this incident was not racially motivated.
Spoler alert: It was racially motivated.
17
What is your evidence? Spoiler alert: you don't have any.
17
The manager did nothing wrong. If you don't buy anything you don't belong there. Common sense. Starbucks only problem was not enforcing this more vigorously.
20
They did nothing wrong? Are you serious? These humans came into a public facility, caused absolutely no problems. So you're telling me that's all someone needs to call 9-1-1? What a joke.
10
Excuse me, but a train station is a public facility. A zoo is a public facility, a city or county library is a public facility, maybe even a hospital. But I don't think a privately owned coffee shop is a public facility. Taxpayers didn't pay for it or vote for it, did they?
5
They were wrong. Shoulda let them use the toilet. And you’re wrong too: it’s not a public facility but rather a private business. Still, people sit in Starbucks for hours, some with drinks, some not. Never have I seen anyone handcuffed and arrested for that. Clean up your employee’s act Starbucks.
1
Ok. You're the police officer called there. What do you do?
4
that's exactly the question. de-escalate. assess for violent potential. then be patient. call a superior if necessary.
3
Just for reference, the last time I was in Harrod’s in London, unless you are a patron of one of the several restaurants, it cost a cool pound to use the restroom without regard to the color of your skin.
42
I have never been to Harrods department store.
Now I am sure I will never go there.
I'm not sure what to make of this incident. Is this the best test case on racial discrimination? (I'm not a Starbucks fan for a host of reasons, including their labor policies.)
A Starbucks in Baltimore wouldn't let me (a white, middle age guy) use the bathroom last month since, "it is for customers only." And this was in a hotel lobby where I was meeting friends to go for dinner. I'll admit that I have sat in Starbucks & other places, without buying anything, for a short time while waiting for friends. It was never a long time--say, ten minutes--since I figured restaurants and coffee shops aren't community centers.
Should we now populate these businesses for meetings and social gatherings w/o buying anything?
27
They were there to meet a friend. Who calls the cops for that? That is crying wolf. BTW, I managed a Starbucks in graduate school and has plenty of vagrants spending all day at my store and using the bathroom. With my personal sense of decency, it never crossed my mind to call the cops.
15
I wish you were the manager at the Starbucks last month when I asked to use the bathroom!
Is your argument that non-customers should have open access to a private restaurant's bathrooms and seating? Good luck with that struggle.
12
No, but I also didn't call the police.
4
Firstly, I strongly condemn what happened in Philly. I go to Starbucks at least twice a day! I live primarily in Toronto but have a home in the US also where I frequent Starbucks too. I think the staff has difficult decisions to make especially with the homeless people, who in my city are primarily white! As a customer, I never use the bathrooms as there are a lot of seedy characters coming off the street, who buy a cup of coffee, and then use the bathroom smelling of urine and sometime using drugs. I went to use the bathroom with my 5 year old grand daughter who couldn't wait, and I was appalled about the condition inside! We promptly left and went to a department store. It is clearly not a racial issue here as it was in Philly but there still is a problem that needs to be addressed. In addition, employees should not have to use the same rest rooms as the customers. So I think we have opened a can of worms! I know that the Starbucks employees are treated very fairly buy the management and we can't let the actions of one employee or store, speak for all 12,000 stores. Let's fix the problem, remembering that each city has its own dynamics and population, and find a way to address these issues and help with the racial bias, rude customers and homeless people too. I have never had a rude staff member in any Starbucks in the world. Thank you
5
I am a white man who always uses the restroom in Starbucks before I order anything. It makes perfect sense. Otherwise, I’m off to the restroom, leaving my drink and my seat unattended. If I’m meeting someone, I wait until they arrive before ordering anything. It’s common courtesy.
In all these cases, no store employee ever demanded that I buy something. This isn’t about taking up free space in a store without buying anything. It’s about being black in America and still having to deal with racism almost 153 years after the Civil War ended.
And maybe it’s time for some of these cops to be handcuffed. I was brought up with strong respect for the police. One local officer would sometimes stop at our house on his rounds. I felt so important with a police car parked in our driveway. It was one of the good memories of my childhood. But I don’t know what’s happened to cops today. Has something changed them or were they always like that and we didn’t see their dark side until smart phone video came along?
In any case, the Philadelphia incident was wrong, wrong, wrong. Hopefully, we can all learn something from it. And at least no one was shot.
92
Until you routinely put your own life on the line to protect total strangers, please stop bashing cops.
3
Exactly. When I grew up (far away in the South/West), one of my neighbors was a cop. I had never thought poorly of police -- but he, the cop, warned all of us kids verging on teen years to be VERY careful if we should EVER encounter cops we did not know, in any situation. He was frank and said that we could be beaten if we were perceived to have slighted one of the officers. That was over 35 years ago. I think it is worse today, AND we all see it more clearly due to ubiquitous smartphone cameras. At least, those of us who are not cheerleaders for 'law and order' at the cost of our civil rights.
3
This is not bashing -- I'm sharing my own life experience as it happened. Same with the commenter above.
And we DO have the right to criticize any and public servants and services. That freedom is the very foundation of laws and rights in this country.
2
There is also a lot of indignant behavior to go around at Starbucks in general. Remember this is a place that people can more easily loiter hangout and definitely can be more disruptive in what should be a more tranquil environment. Some of these employees are given the task to monitor the store for vagrants, disruptions, fights and people who are just there to start trouble. Depending where it is and what they have handled in that store before may be a reason why they jumped the gun in this case. Can we please start looking around and understand that it can get pretty ugly in a lot of these stores. This training should help but bad human behavior doesn't know any race.
10
I've sat in Starbucks quite a few times waiting for a meeting or knocking down some work on my laptop, and more than a few of those times I never bought a thing. Even carried my own coffee into the shop. Used the restroom.
Not one time ever, whether it was in Phoenix, L.A., Portland or Vegas did any employee say one word to me about not being a customer.
But I'm white, you know the type. White and viewed as less menacing.
It's just pigment folks. We're all just human beings regardless of the color of the pigment in our skin.
16
a laptop makes you look employed, professional, and engrossed in an activity.
I drive an eighty thousand dollar car. I've been pulled over for speeding 4 times. I'm white, but cops can't tell my race BEFORE they talk to me. still, they are have been relatively courteous every time, even though I was going very fast. Why? Porsche. If those two black guys had pulled out iMacs and started working away. I doubt they would have been hassled.
4
Virtue Signaling run wild; this is so blatant that it is contemplable. 8,000 stores closed so big brother can beam its image and words to flat panel TV’s across the country. This is a 2018 version of the Cultural Revolution - blasting party Chairman Mao’s slogans to Chinese factory workers.
60
Right. All your buzz words OR a company recognizing that an injustice was done and wants to be part of making things better, which is also good business. To compare this to Chairman Mao is hysteria.
9
Whether it is confrontations with the police or confrontations with business owners and managers why does it always appear that blacks are at the center of the drama in daily news stories?
Is everyone out to get the blacks? From the number of stories that appear each day one could be forgiven for thinking that it's blacks against the world.
The things that are reported happening to blacks rarely, if ever involve, and other race.
Why is that?
13
On vacation recently I wandered around Montreal trying desperately to find a business that had a restroom. After several exasperating attempts we finally found a bar and tea shop that had a restroom and also a very prominent sign stating that the restroom waa was for customers only. Did I say that I had the right to use their restroom and wouldn't leave if I was wasn't granted access? Of course not, I got a drink and my wife used the restroom.
The simple fix for this is to do the same at Starbucks. Without this clear policy, a company leaves themselves open to this kind of ridiculous behavior by all parties involved.
Starbucks is on shaky ground on this business model... Im sure the college students and professionals will be very welcoming in sharing their space with whomever chooses to come off the street and join them customer or not.
And these guys aren't Rosa Parks... Using the restroom at Starbucks isn't a civil right...
211
Rosa Parks wasn't protesting bus seating, she was protesting one set of rules for whites and a different set of rules for blacks. Nice try though.
21
You don't know whether there was a "set of rules" involved here, and again, Starbucks is a private company not a public service or facility.
2
You are absolutely correct - the use of the restroom at Starbucks is not a civil right. This is a private property rights issue where the power is vested in Starbucks. Since when is it acceptable to loiter in a place of business?
5
While I am not saying that what happened in this particular episode warranted the outcome it got, I also find the the reaction and ensuing prompting to boycott Starbucks is blown out of proportion and rash.
These days everything is biased, prejudiced and racist. Yet no one takes the time to look at what actually happened and put things into perspective.
How come nobody reports on all those instances where people, of all races, colours and creeds by the way, come into a Starbucks and steal, harass customers and not simply or ask for change but often intimidate or threaten other customers.
I have personally seen all types of people enter, people with drug addiction, mental health issues, homeless (or all at he same time), or people who don't buy anything and just use the free WiFi, take the place of paying customers etc.
In most instances Starbucks employees try to be as accommodating as possible and react as reasonable as possible given the circumstances. But last I checked this is a business not a shelter or a social services agency. So as a customer I do want and go in, buy a drink and enjoy it in relative peace without having to worried that I get robbed or assaulted.
No one is saying that people, like these gentlemen, or anybody for that matter, should be mistreated, but it depends on the circumstances surrounding the situation. What I also find it strange is that no one talks about how women get regularly harassed at Starbucks.
32
Be proactive and film the activities you find upsetting and post the video on social media. This is what the customers inside the Philadelphia Starbucks did.
1
I am a white middle age man who meets people at Starbucks all the time. Sometimes we order something, sometimes we don't.
And I have never had something like this happen to me . . . . . .
It seems some type of bias is playing out.
30
Not much slips by you!
2
Milwaukee is also not Philly. I begin to think Philly is the problem.
Or maybe downtown Philly isn't like Milwaukee
1
the starbucks in question is 1 block from a public park in arguably the most upscale areas of the city. i used to frequent both until i moved (typically buy the cofee and sit in the park). why not meet at the park? why not leave when asked by the store employee? when asked by the police? why not buy a small coffee?
106
I’ve been to plenty of coffee shops all over the place, and when I’ve been planning to meet someone I’ve often grabbed a seat well before ordering or asked to use the restroom without ordering anything first and never once been denied. Ever. I’m white. I’m usually well-Kemp’s but I certainly don’t look like one of the Hardy Boys.
I’m pretty sure the experience for black people - especially men - is entirely different. If you can’t see how the world works differently for blacks and whites then it’s probably because you don’t want to.
3
I never said the world doesn't work differently for different people. It does, and it shouldn't.
That said, from what I have read to date, this escalated because non-patrons were asked to leave by both employees of the store and the police. While they may have been targeted for the color of their skin, which would be wrong (although, again, not proven), they were wrong for not simply making a minimum purchase or leaving when asked by the employee or police.
5
Why not leave them alone? They weren't bothering anyone. If one of those guys was Ben Simmons would they have been treated the same way? I don't think so. And if they deserved to be kicked out, then why is Starbucks apologizing now? Those are the questions you should be asking yourself. Not, why didn't they just comply? Good for them for standing up for themselves. They are smarter than Starbucks management.
2
Warning: May 29th- that'll be the day you want to stay in and hide as we'll have a whole lot of zombies roaming the streets looking for their caffeine fix.
9
Police should have declined intervention. They know what real crimes are. At least we hope they do. Need Unarmed Peace Officers that have time for this.
10
I think that the Starbucks employee went to far by calling the police.
However, I can appreciate the HEad office asking people who do not order coffee or other drinks to please leave.
I visit a McDonald's every day, and there are people who stay 4 hours a day there and only 1their first coffee. I've been to Starbuck's and there students are on their computers for hours at a time, and take up space that others customers could be using.
Coffee shops are a business, and it is perfectly right for a store manager to ask "potential" patrons who just sit around to order a coffee!
11
I concur with the person here who said that he thought that everyone was losing their minds.
I too see no bias, no discrimination.
When you enter an establishment, you are basically becoming a party to a kind of license to be allowed a limited usage of the facilities (for example, you aren't allowed to go back to the kitchen and make yourself a sandwich) in exchange for conducting business. If a person, white OR black, is not buying anything, in the absence of an express agreement, they don't have an absolute right, license, or a privilege to remain in the commercial space indefinitely.
That's just the way it goes. Management would be within its rights under the aforementioned license to either request that a business invitee who does not conduct business after a time and yet remains on the premises, peaceably or not, to remove themselves, or to call the police to have them removed for breach of peace, trespass, etc.; because, basically the way this goes is, that when someone says you are breaching their peace, that's actionable. That's the time you either decide that you're going to leave or you're going to have a confrontation.
Race doesn't EVEN enter into this - persons of ANY race are EQUALLY susceptible to having these standards imposed upon them. So I would look with suspicion on anyone who tried to make this into a thing about racial bias.
72
We must live on different planets. i can't tell you the number of times I have myself been in coffee houses like Starbucks, waiting for friends or working, without buying something or seeing other people do the same. As a white woman, no one has EVER asked me to leave, ever. Let me guess. You are a white male?
28
You might be correct, except that plenty of non-black people take up space at Starbucks without buying anything and don't get the cops called on them. A theoretically race-neutral policy that is only enforced upon people of a specific race is still racist.
70
Jake: Spoken with all of the haughty airs of white privilege.
14
Wow! Starbucks is shutting all 8,000 of its stores racial-bias trainings. Talk about starting from the grounds up!
7
Most casual coffee shops have signs saying that rest rooms are only for customers. In order to be a customer, one must make a purchase. I can order, pay, use a rest room, then pick up my purchase. I don't see that skin color has anything to do with this but 2 non-customers saw an opportunity to play a race card & sue. In the long run, this does not help anyone but the people who actually get payouts. It further polarizes perceptions of racial "injustice."
126
i use the starbucks restroom many times w/o making a purchase; figured it’s fine because i hold sbux stocks.
other times, i just use the restroom because i figured, i’ve bought many cups of coffee in starbux through the years w/o using the restroom and using now is just fine.
6
No, what happened was a Starbucks employee played the racial profiling game, and two men waiting for a third to show up got arrested, because they are black. They didn’t sue. But please feel free to make up the facts to fit your world view.
1
your eyes need opening. nobody has said anything about suing. if they did I would say Bravo. did you not see the fear and humiliation on their faces? Did the white guy yelling at the cops get arrested?
Why couldn't those two men order a coffee while waiting for their friend? Or when asked to leave order their coffee then?
I'm glad that so many people can tell that the manager was a racist (sarcasm). I'm sure Starbucks has an employee manual and training and I wonder what it says about allowing non-customers to use the bathroom and hang out without ordering. If the manual says call the police, than it's Starbucks fault, not the managers.
36
To me skin color is not the major problem. We can't force people like each other. Economic inequality is a serious problem in our nation. If everyone and all American families have decent incomes and jobs, people would have no time to sit around doing nothing. I worked almost 12 hours each day for more than 45 years and happily retired more than 15 years ago. I am old but I do not have time to sit around looking my ceilings. Perhaps Starbucks should offer job opportunities to the ones looking for work. It is not a racial problem it is economic problem. Would this kind of incident happened in Las Vegas high class casinos? Starbucks could also offer some free coffee for needy people, I have never been to Starbucks because I like McDonald coffee, it is cheaper and taste better for me. Starbucks is for elite and educated Americans. A low income person and a high school drop out like me and I am very happy with McDonald coffee with a big Mac. Perhaps Starbucks could hire more black managers and it may help to reduce this kind of unhappy incident. I go to a coffee shop to enjoy my coffee time not to pick a fight.
5
We've got a legacy situation to deal with. Horrific, past atrocities have set up quite a spectrum of discriminatory practices, from the mediocre to the murderous. This isn't about saying we've got to deal with this and not that. Every step taken to bring attention to and correct what previous centuries did to humanity should be applauded. Let's raise awareness from every possible direction. Yes, the police need to be better instructed, and what Starbucks is doing is making us just a little bit more aware of it.
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." James Baldwin
53
This has nothing to do with some "legacy" situation (whatever that's supposed to mean. This one is actually pretty easy; a coffee-shop or restaurant is not a waiting area or public toilette. The two guys neither placed an order nor left when asked; those facts are not in dispute. Management was well within its rights to request police assistance in removing them from the premises. Starbucks' boss looks like a craven fool, and really, what can he tell the employees? That anyone and everyone is allowed to loiter and take tables/seats away from paying customers? Unless that's the message, there's no point in closing the shops for some ridiculous "sensitivity" training.
17
They were waiting for a friend.
2
A legacy situation is one you didn't create but inherited.
BTW -- Spent some time in Cologne when in college. My friends and I had people there in stitches when we tried to say, correctly in German, what Americans call "Cologne." Just couldn't get that umlaut. Good times.
well there is that; all companies buried in the heartland could use a lot of diversity training and I know this because I grew up in the mid-west.
It's too bad that type of barista can't be routed out before they are even hired.
However, I am more interested in how the police justified the hand-cuffing and holding the victims for many hours before they released them.
52
Philadelphia is on the East Coast.
2
Starbucks staff (from what I've been told and have observed), like at other restaurant chains, tend to be young and not as experienced service-wise, in an environment with high turnover, even among management. Most don't have the life experience with a diversity of clientele, so any implicit bias is kind of a hard thing to "route out" during an interview, short of a potential employee denigrating certain classes of people right then and there during the interview. Some managers don't know how to route out the employee who's going to show up two hours late, comp all their friends, or steal from the till, much less pick up on their biases.
1
Yeah, that is the crazy part. The barista calls the cops when the pair wouldn't purchase or leave. The cops come and the pair still won't leave, but it seems like a simple escort out the door would be about the extent of it. Arrest for lurking in a shop while black is nuts.
1
This is progress: re-education camps without the heat and humidity of Vietnam and Cambodia. I would love to run a re-education camp for Starbucks customers. Lesson 1: There is a place called "McDonald's" where insiders can purchase coffee for 99 cents and, even more miraculously, the food does not come out of a microwave. Lesson 2: latte is actually "milk," a drink for baby mammals. Advanced Topics: How to obtain free refills on coffee at Panera.
23
I prefer McDonald's coffee because it isn't bitter, costs $1.00 and the restaurants are hipster-free.
5
I read it all and I honestly think it's one employee who got angry and over-reacted. I don't like Starbucks coffee, but I don't think they are a bad company.
13
Sorry Schultz, an apology won't suffice but an apology plus $25,000 each would go a long way to renew community relations.
5
Starbucks needs to revisit its restroom policy respective of racial overtones. As a not so scary old white geezer, I'm reluctant to use a Starbucks restroom without waving a receipt at an employee. I've gotten the feeling that managers and maybe other workers are under pressure to enforce customer restroom policies more than other businesses.
9
Did you read any of the comments here from former coffee shop managers about neighborhood heroin addicts using coffee shop restrooms to fix in?
4
On a visit to New York City in 2014, I stopped by a Starbucks location in Manhattan to use their Wi-Fi so I could find a business I was looking for. After a few minutes inside, I was approached by a young, white, female, employee and told that if I wasn’t buying anything that I needed to leave. I apologized and left immediately without a fuss. I am a white man. As a long-time customer of Starbucks, I think it was a poor business decision to ask me to leave, because ever since that day, I haven’t bought anything from Starbucks. But, I don’t think race played any role in the incident in Philadelphia. The employees were just doing what they were told to do. They don’t need racial bias training. The CEO, Kevin Johnson, and his goons need basic business training. The employees should boycott the training session since they are being made scapegoats for the poor decisions of upper management. I am done with Starbucks.
113
Can you tell me why you think you had the right to sit there without buying anything? You proudly say that you have boycotted them since that day, but as many commenters have pointed out, signs indicating restrooms are for customers only are the norm, not the exception. Also interesting that you needed to describe the employee, who was just doing her job, in both gender and racial terms. You also show an incredible blind spot that management has to give employees discretion. The security situation is hardly comparable between a Starbucks which has to deal with homeless with mental/drug issues using their restrooms and one in an affluent suburb.
Bathrooms, rent, wi-fi and employees aren't free. You are showing an impressive level of entitlement. Starbucks does better for itself and its PAYING customers without people like you.
3
Because I was a customer on a different day. But, a customer none the less. What people should be asking themselves isn't what Starbucks has the "right" to do, but rather, "why are they apologizing if they were right?" You don't seem to understand business. These 2 guys are smart. They knew, even facing arrest, that Starbucks would back down. And back down they did. The CEO of Starbucks should resign, because he doesn't know what he's doing.
2
CEO just apologized because of the only reason. To be Politically Correct. I am sure deep down in his mind, these 2 non-paying customers should have been asked to leave, but they didn't. THAT was the problem.
5
Starbucks is a victim of its own success. It welcomes people who lounge and sit all day instead of being in their apartments. It often has the only rest room in its vicinity. On a crowded day it is impossible to find a seat and impossible to know which customers purchased anything.
In New York this has led to long waiting lines for the restroom, along with homeless using the restroom to take long wash breaks. Some Starbucks have switched to locking bathroom doors. The staff can’t keep up with cleaning and the situation can be downright unsanitary, both in the bathroom and at the self-serve station. It’s not an easy problem for the customers or the staff. Along with anti-bias sensitivity training, they may need to rethink whether they are an open table and hygiene facility or a point of purchase.
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Starbucks, despite being a victim of its own success, has a market cap of $84.10B. This, despite all its trespassers. How many victims enjoy such success?
I think Starbucks coffee shops and their bathrooms have just become public spaces.
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If true, that's a disastrous precedent.
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This is more about letting other "customers" who hadn't purchased anything access and yet denying it to these two black men. I have used the Starbucks restrooms without having purchased a thing, but I am white and male.
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Steve: You don't actually know that. You don't know all the variables - like how crowded this particular Starbucks was at the time, or whether other customers had purchased something or not.
How about the government building some public restrooms for the human beings with bodily functions stuck in this country ?
I know.......too radical an idea.
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And unemployed people who wish to have money could be attendants, as those in upscale restaurants and hotels in this and, to an even great degree, in other countries.
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Pretty disgusting job to foist on unemployed people..
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As far as I know no one is “stuck in this country.” Or did I miss new border controls keeping someone from leaving?
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Can I still order my coffee as a "Tall Blonde" or just "Black" or do we as customers also need training? I think everyone is losing their minds....
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My sentiments exactly! Enough already! Thank you!
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I don't see why asking these men to leave was a problem. I also don't see what the color of the skin had to do with anything.
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Read the report of an eye-witness account at the TV station 6ABC's site and ask that question again:
http://6abc.com/what-a-witness-says-happened-during-phila-starbucks-arre...
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It's not a problem Arturo ... so long as:
(a) they implement that exact same policy with every patron who comes to their store.
(b) they have a "time limit" on the amount of time someone can spend "just sitting" there without ordering something.
(c) the post this information for everyone to see.
Otherwise they are practicing racial bias and discrimination in how their customers are treated. Truth to tell, it happens anyway, every day to African-American people, even when they do order something.
At least now everyone is more aware of it, and likely to NOT do it, and when they do, corrective actions & will be taken.
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I think the fact that they weren't feverishly writing screenplays on their expensive computers was the problems.
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They will have their hands full, because whether it's racial, sexist, religious or homophobic bias these are usually ingrained in a person from childhood, so getting rid of that bias will take more then a day's training.
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You are correct BTO, so it is a really good thing that they are having this training!
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This is an over-reaction.
I did a project once in center city Philadelphia. The police department was fired and replaced by a private police force. They saved me once when I was followed by four black guys intent on robbing me and what else. I'm from the street myself so I recognized it. These guys were cornered and turned over to the police in seconds. I had a few other encountered like that in Philly. A few years before, on a previous project, my boss was mugged by two black guys.
Unfortunately for them, my boss was a strapping ex-goalie from his college hockey team. My boss beat up pretty good. Most people wouldn't be that lucky.
My point is that people, especially white people, are a tad nervous in that area. Especially, when the police tell them to go and they resist.
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Skittish in Rittenhouse?! Yours are just anecdotal stories - maybe true - maybe goosed up, who knows. I do know this: the Rittenhouse area is about as far from a scary neighborhood as you can get. I wish I could live there!
People often think they are less safe in an unfamiliar area,
That said, the guys shoulda just ordered a coffee, and the cops should have never been involved. The Starbucks employee overreacted.
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For the last six months I have walked on forearm crutches due to surgery and neuropathy. I cannot balance myself when I stand. Yet the doc says to walk, so we get out and walk. About two months ago we went to lunch at a new TexMex place. You order your food, pick it up, find a table, eat. While my wife stood in line, I leaned on the Coke machine for 20 minutes while three tables of Millennials played with their phones and chatted...finished their food, people standing around with trays waiting to eat. We walked out and left the food on the counter after 30 minutes. A rep from the company later contacted us and apologized. She ranted about the lack of manners, consideration, rudeness and self absorption of the “I’m the Greatest” generation.
These young men allegedly waited on a friend, but has anyone verified that? I doubt this is racism. Its Millennialism. Businesses pay $$$$ for space, and tying up tables cuts into their profitability. It is also inconsiderate to customers and workers. I worked in restaurants thru college. Tying up tables cuts into workers tips and puts pressure on busboys (as was I). But manners and consideration are relics, along with family, respect, deference. Belligerence and bullying are the new American values, that is, if you are in the right group. The left wants a racist story, and it gets one. But who better than Starbucks, the bellwether of that age.
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The friend arrived while they were being handcuffed and removed and has been interviewed in some accounts. They were allegedly there to discuss a job opportunity.
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I wholeheartedly disagree that that is "millennialism' as you put it. I've worked at starbucks for 7 years and I can tell you first hand that the people who hold up the table the longest are older folk. They typically come in as a group, buy one, maybe two coffees between everyone at the table and park it for hours. I often watch customers walk in and see there is no seating and turn around and leave.
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Excuse me, but you older people(Notice how I said older people because I'm putting you guys in the same category even though you may not be like what I'm about to describe) always act as all millennials are self-entitled, disrespectful, feel like "I'm the Greatest" generation. Which isn't true at all. That's like saying all white people are racist when that is not true at all.
I'm completely shocked by the ridiculousness of this whole situation. Two guys refused to buy anything, and when they were asked to leave, they refused to go. The cops get there and ask them to leave, and when they refuse, they are arrested. The employee who called the cops is now no longer working there. Meanwhile, the two guys got to meet the CEO of Starbucks--all without paying a dime to the company.
I'm wondering what this means for the rest of America. Can we now sit in restaurants and use their bathroom and wifi for free without buying anything? If a manager (or a cop) asks us to leave, do we not have to comply? Is hanging out for free at a private establishment now a right? I'm just wondering what the upshot is.
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Agreed. I see people and students in Starbucks and Second Cup sitting for hours at a time on their cell phones and laptops and only buying 1 coffee. I've even had to go elsewhere as there was no space to sit and order a coffee.
Some people have the gaul to do this without thinking of other patrons and the coffee company.
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You've missed the issue completely. White people doing the same thing as the two black men were not asked to leave and were not arrested by the police for "trespassing" - a charge which was later dropped.
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According to the Washington Post, they were realtors who were waiting for a third man before they ordered. Once the third man arrived he tried to explain that they were meeting him (he was white) but the police arrested them in spite of the explanation.
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That's quite the publicity stunt. And it's a good one. I'm glad Starbucks is demonstrating this level of attention and care to the issue.
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After working at Starbucks for 14 years, I can tell you that it was like working at a plantation. My store manager would not even talk about racism in society, let alone at work at Starbucks. I guess the chickens are coming home to roost when I told them, that racism is a serious problem, especially at the management level. Ironically, they also said that my social media was inflammatory but now it is social media that brings to light the unconscious bias to the nation's attention.
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14 years at Starbucks ? Dear God !
I would have helped you get out earlier if I'd known.
What's it like to get out of prison, Leatherndevil ?
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"...it was like working at a plantation."
So you were paid (with benefits) to serve coffee in a temperature-controlled environment for a limited number of hours per day but you think it was comparable to being a slave on a plantation. Give me a break.
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Hey, Lynn, you go work there if you think it’s so easy. I’ve never seen a Starbucks where baristas didn’t have a ton of complicated orders to fill back to back—and constant lines.
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Unless I missed this, we don’t know the reason as given by employee, that they decided it was appropriate to call the police. I’m not condoning the behavior of this was racially motivated. But the story to me is one sided.
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The story includes the statement that the Philadelphia police "released audio of a female caller who reported 'two gentlemen at my cafe who are refusing to make a purchase or leave.'"
Appalling racist bias indeed. Continual, sustained training is necessary, for note than a day. This is simply a PR move. Starbucks needs to implement strong policies and ongoing training. Until then, I am boycotting their establishments.
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In 8,000 stores that serve millions of customers each day, one employee goes haywire, and you think Starbucks doesn't train its employees enough. I'm pretty impressed that this happens so infrequently. No employer can control every action of every employee all the time. The training is probably overkill---making 175,000 employees who didn't do the misdeed undergo training.
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Even with continual, sustained training, you're always going to get that one person who just doesn't act appropriately. Common sense says that Starbucks cannot control other people's behavior (no one can control anyone's behavior but their own). They are taking steps to right a wrong of an employee who acted inappropriately. I think they are doing the right thing.
(I don't go to Starbucks so couldn't boycott if I wanted to - but think a boycott is pretty extreme. Fortunately, I live in an area that has like 10 excellent independent coffee shops.)
2
So in Poland you can walk into a restaurant, use the toilet, and sit at a table but the restaurant staff cannot ask you to leave if you don’t order anything? Find a restaurant coffee shop which will allow non-customers to use its toilet and tables and have your coffee there.
2
I’ve always wondered to those people call 911 on about everything. Sometimes ended up badly that people ended up killed by police officers . So...would those callers come out in public and said they were glad that they made that phone call? Ive always wondered want do they think after the outcome of their calls ? Please come out in public !
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Big statement by Starbucks - but I still see the problem as law enforcement's unthinking knee jerk response to the situation. An idiot employee made a stupid move. At some point - someone has to think critically and act in a well reasoned manner. Shouldn't that have been the police? After they assess the stiuation to keep on moving. I don't need my tax dollars going to starbucks waiting for friends enforcement. I would, however, like to know that my local police are well trained, thoughtful community servants.
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I see 2 members of the public asked to leave who refused.
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The police were called by a Starbucks employee who claimed these gentleman were trespassing on their property. The police did their job removing those two from the establishment at the request of the manager. It wasn't a judgment call.
Scenario: You're on my private property just sitting there and I ask you to leave and you refuse. I call the cops and tell them you are trespassing. Should I be upset that the cops are allowed to make a judgment call and say "Hey, it's ok, this person is just sitting there on your property"?
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I think you've got it right. The police acted badly---they gave a government endorsement to discrimination in a public accommodation. All the comments here comparing personal private property rights against trespassing are not on point. Private homes are not public accommodations. If you run a business like a coffee shop, and you routinely let white people loiter there, you just aren't allowed to call the police to remove loitering black people. The police perhaps could have pointed this out to the person who called---you let whites loiter here all the time, and having these black men arrested will cause great problems for you and Starbucks. Now I'm assuming white people loiter all the time at this particular Starbucks, but I'm confident that's true because all kinds of people loiter at every coffee shop I've ever been in.
9
This happened to me in Boston a few years ago. I was running late to a seminar and I stopped into an adjacent Starbucks to use the men's room. I am a white man. I was immediately pointed in the right direction. As I was leaving the store, a black man and a white man asked to use the men's room and they were told no by the same person who allowed me to use it. They left the store and I asked why she denied them and the employee told me that heroin use in the bathrooms had reached almost an epidemic, so the employees were given some discretion as to who could and who could not use the bathroom.
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Makes sense to me.
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Rocketscientist: Except the white guy could just as easily be using heroin.
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Bravo and let Starbucks be a lead for other customer service companies to follow.
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I have often, very often, used the bathroom at Starbucks prior to buying anything, 1) to wash my hands and, 2) because if I have to go at all before I get a cup of liquid, after I start to drink it I will really have to go and what do I do with my partially drunk cup of coffee or tea, bring it with me? Ew. Leave it unattended at the table to be thrown out or tampered with. No. Who ever thought one could be accused of trespassing in a public establishment that wanted you, invites you, advertises for you to come in and be a customer. If there are time limits on sitting there, readers and computer users, find another coffee shop. By the way, I owned a coffee house and would never call the police on peaceful customers. I am hoping that this was an aberration and wondering why the CEO did not immediately, in forceful language, say this was unacceptable behavior of Starbucks employees.
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Out of curiosity, do you live in an urban or suburban area?
Because I have had the opposite experience: I have never been to a Starbucks that *didn't* require you to buy something beforehand.
It's almost always to prevent 1) homeless people from using the bathrooms as a place to bathe or 2) people from using the bathroom as a place to shoot up heroin. (Sometimes both)
Many businesses (not just Starbucks) now print their bathroom code and the wifi code on the bottom of the receipt to reinforce that both are for paying customers only.
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Apparently Starbucks bathrooms are now open to anyone, regardless of a purchase.
5
“The two men were arrested after asking to use the restroom in the shop. An employee refused their request, because the men had not bought anything, according to officials. The men sat down and were asked to leave, and an employee eventually called the police.”
Racial biased training? How about common sense training – for management AND Starbucks associates?
I have been in various food related establishments over the years where signage is posted, clearly stating the restrooms are for paying patrons - ONLY. I never saw such a sign in any Starbucks and most associates have allowed folks to use the restroom when necessary.
I have no idea whether the employee’s intent to telephone the police was out of racial overtones or simply thinking it was an appropriate action to take. This is where the common sense discussion should come into play. Management should have anticipated a scenario like this LONG AGO and shame on them for not communicating to their associates what kind of action or procedure should be followed in this kind of situation. And shame on this employee (or any employee) for assuming this degree of extreme action was appropriate or acceptable. I think there is more than enough blame, embarrassment, common sense and attitude adjustment to go around for the entire Starbucks Company and their associates. This is a situation that should have NEVER taken place.
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Marge, I basically agree with you. However, one point that is worth considering is that coffee shops have it a little harder than sit-down restaurants. In a sit-down restaurant, you sit at a table and order a meal. Normally the restrooms are in the back, so a person has to walk through the restaurant, by the servers, to get to them. In a coffee shop, people are milling around, so they are not as conspicuous if they want to use the restroom and haven't ordered anything.
This bathroom issue is basically a result of America's homeless problem. I have seen a Starbucks have to close because it was too much of a hangout for homeless people. Not that they didn't buy anything; they might buy one cup of coffee and then sit in the Starbucks all day. After awhile, unfortunately, this made it a less desirable place for others to go to.
I'm not justifying what was done at the Philadelphia Starbucks. That shows a real lapse in common sense judgment, as you say. But I think we have to realize the restroom access problem is not easy to solve.
As I said on a Facebook discussion of this: "This shows why having money is so important in human relations. When you have money, you don't have to hang out in places where people don't want you."
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The bathroom issue at Starbucks is a result of a culture that’s decided it’s okay to operate without free, accessible, public bathrooms.
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I've never been refused to use a bathroom at Starbuck, even a locked one. But then I'm "white,"
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This is excellent news. I admire the CEO of Starbucks having done this. What happened in Philadelphia must not continue.
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It will BitterSweet, but now we know we have options when being mistreated at a store, and we will take them.
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Apparently ordering your coffee black at Starbucks means getting it to go (and quickly).
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Racial-bias training sounds like a good idea Starbucks. Apparently, at some Starbucks stores, white customers can get coffee served black, but black customers can't get coffee served at all.
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No one was, as far as I can tell, keeping them from buying something.
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They refused to purchase any coffee.
It is a business not a public gather space.
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Cute play on words, Jay but inappropriate as you can do better in the NYT
5
Ok. It's not like there aren't other coffee shops...
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I heard on the radio that Starbucks branded itself as the 'third space" between home and office where people can sit and do all sorts of things. The branding has brought much profit. It is not just any other coffee shop from a branding point of view.
1
Starbucks had called itself a "third place" years ago, I think--but I had always understood that description to mean that people were expected to buy something in order to be able to stay there. I am honestly very surprised that so many people are now saying you were never expected to buy anything. i distinctly remember signs at the Starbucks inside the Metro Center Barnes and Noble (now gone) saying that the premises were for paying customers only.
1
Will there also be training for non-customers who demand to use their bathroom without buying anything, and who then defy law enforcement officers who respectfully ask them to leave based on a request from the store manager?
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Have you ever been asked to leave a restaurant because the person you are meeting there has yet to arrive? Yeah, I didn’t think so. #waitingwhilewhite
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Your comment is unsubstantiated by the facts. These men were waiting on a colleague for a business meeting.
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Not for protected class non-customers.
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