Posted on 05/11/2018 11:05:29 AM PDT by grundle
Starbucks Executive Chairman Howard Schultz said Thursday that Starbucks' bathrooms will now be open to everyone, whether paying customers or not.
"We don't want to become a public bathroom, but we're going to make the right decision 100 percent of the time and give people the key," Schultz said at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. "Because we don't want anyone at Starbucks to feel as if we are not giving access to you to the bathroom because you are 'less than.' We want you to be 'more than.' "
Two black men, business partners Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson, both 23, were arrested on April 12 as they sat in a Philadelphia Starbucks after not buying anything and asking to use the restroom.
The store manager called the police after asking them to leave — a "terrible decision," Schultz said.
Video of their arrest sparked outrage on social media and accusations of racial bias. Protesters stood outside and inside the Philadelphia Starbucks store where the arrest occurred.
"The company, the management and me personally — not the store manager — are culpable and responsible. And we're the ones to blame," Schultz said Thursday.
"We were absolutely wrong in every way. The policy and the decision she made, but it's the company that's responsible," he added. With Philadelphia Arrests, Starbucks Again Becomes Focus Of Cultural Debate
Schultz said the company had a "loose policy" around letting paying customers use the bathroom, though it was up to the discretion of individual store managers.
The company responded to the incident by announcing that it would close its more than 8,000 U.S. locations on the afternoon of May 29 for racial bias training. Schultz said on Thursday that the company brought in outside help to design the curriculum.
Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, is one of those helping to shape the training.
"Racism is deeply entrenched in our society, and any real effort to confront it means you have to be in it for the long haul," Ifill told NPR's All Things Considered last month. "It means you have to be in it seriously. It means not just training. It means monitoring the effectiveness of that training."
Schultz claimed that that was the case, saying the May 29 session is "the beginning, not the end of an entire transformation of our training at Starbucks."
He said the company was also working with Stanley Nelson, director of the documentary Freedom Riders, to produce a documentary that would "make sure that people understand: This is not a marketing thing, we're deeply committed to this."
Schultz also addressed the company's past failure to address racial issues in the U.S. with its short-lived "Race Together" campaign in 2015. The company had encouraged baristas to write "Race Together" on customers' cups in an effort to start conversations about race.
He said the goal was to "elevate the national conservation, the national discourse around race" after the killings of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and Eric Garner in 2014 had brought up "racial divide."
Starbucks held meetings among employees about race, involving workers sharing both "their pain" and "their bias," Schultz said, which spurred the idea for some type of outreach beyond the company's workers.
It didn't last one day.
"Within two hours, the entire initiative was basically hijacked by social media. Hijacked by hate, by anonymous people who just pretty much stole the narrative," Schultz said. They shut it down quickly after, mostly out of concern for safety of the company's workers, he said.
NPR's Code Switch rounded up reactions at the time, many of which called the campaign ill-conceived and too sensitive and complex a topic to start with a coffee shop cashier.
OK, Starbucks will soon have to rescind that policy. I’ll do my part by using it myself without paying.
“Two black men, business partners Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson, both 23, were arrested on April 12 as they sat in a Philadelphia Starbucks after not buying anything and asking to use the restroom.”
Funny how we never learn just what “business” they are “partners” in?
Starbucks finally gives a good reason to visit on a road trip.
I’ll keep them in mind when I’m on the road.
Now, because of Starbucks proving they're enlightened elitists, drug dealers and users all across the nation are free to use their bathrooms. Because they're enlightened, do they have co-ed bathrooms? That could get weird.
(why do I take such pleasure in it when Starbucks suffers a self-inflicted wound? Maybe it's because I don't drink coffee in size Grande or whatever)
I hope all of those urban hipsters like sitting next to homeless bums while they drink their coffee, because that’s what is going to happen after this policy is implemented.
I might stop in a Starbucks on my way home. I’m sure I could muster a mighty Obama that would sufficiently wreck that restroom.
Per another media outlet, this may be more of an intimatation than a declaration.
Which is it, Schultz?
>>>give people the key<<<
Why do you have to ask for a Key?
Isn’t this guy an Open Borders lover?
If too many people need to use the “one” Restroom most Starbucks have, I guess they can hand out Cups to Piss in.
If a bigger “receptacle” is needed, just hand them an empty Coffee Pot.
Heck they can emulate Gavin Newsome’s Wife and put a picture of POTUS Trump on it.
Starbucks Cucks. Bending over for bums.
I hope homeless people start taking residence in Starbuck’s bathrooms. They’re open for “business” !!!!
But that's exactly what your new policy will do.
but we're going to make the right decision 100 percent of the time and give people the key," Schultz said at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. "Because we don't want anyone at Starbucks to feel as if we are not giving access to you to the bathroom because you are 'less than.' We want you to be 'more than.' "
What could possibly go wrong with that decision?
Starbucks has an idiot for its "Executive Chairman".
Hey! A new place to loiter. Send all of the bums there.
This will turn to complete a complete backfire next winter when the homeless use Starbucks as their day shelters.
And before then they’ll start demanding free coffee.
I’m going to Starbucks every chance I get. Not buy anything, to use their restroom.
They just became the local public bathroom.
I have never found a locked restroom at a Starbucks.
.
>> “Not buy anything, to use their restroom.” <<
You’re going to catch a fatal disease!
Real people do not use Starpuke diseaseholes!
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