Posted on 03/09/2020 10:32:18 AM PDT by Hojczyk
In May 2018, in response to protests, Starbucks changed its policies nationwide to allow anybody to sit in their stores and use the bathroom without making a purchase. Using a large panel of anonymized cellphone location data, we estimate that the policy led to a 7.3% decline in store attendance at Starbucks locations relative to other nearby coffee shops and restaurants.
This decline cannot be calculated from Starbucks’ public disclosures, which lack the comparison group of other coffee shops. The decline in visits is around 84% larger for stores located near homeless shelters. The policy also affected the intensive margin of demand: remaining customers spent 4.1% less time in Starbucks relative to nearby coffee shops after the policy enactment.
Wealthier customers reduced their visits more, but black and white customers were equally deterred. The policy led to fewer citations for public urination near Starbucks locations, but had no effect on other similar public order crimes. These results show the difficulties of companies attempting to provide public goods, as potential customers are crowded out by non-paying members of the public.
The body of the complete article is even more explicit about the cost of Starbuck’s virtue-signaling, including “the new policy appears to have significantly reduced visits to Starbucks . . . These results suggest that the new policy has been costly to Starbucks. . .”
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
just wait until COVID-19 starts sweeping through the street bums who like to camp-out at Starbucks ...
We killed some time in a Starbucks last weekend in Louisville, KY. It was in a “good” neighborhood and we were very early for a dinner nearby.
The bathroom had a key code on it that employees would only give to you for purchase and had sharps disposal units on the wall. You know, for syringes, needles and the like.
It wasn’t so diabetics or fertility drug users could safely dispose of their medical delivery devices now was it....
Death by a thousand paper cups.
My grocery store in an upscale neighborhood has syringe disposal in the restrooms. They seem to be everywhere, unfortunately.
Whatever happened to Starbux guy?
I thought he was gonna run for Prez this time?
Latest example of “Get woke, go broke”
Gee I hope this study wasn’t financed by a government grant.
But can’t say it’s wholly unexpected. If they dropped 7.5% of customers, and presumably at least that much in revenue, it would have been more cost effective for them to build a second bathroom for the public and one for customers only.
Good news is public urination citations are down! But that could just be because cops are being told not to write any such tickets.
Me, I have avoided starbucks for decades. I don’t like their coffee for one, and for two they acted in a very predatory manner to run local coffee houses out of business. They were allowed to do it in a capitalist society (presumably they broke no laws, or didn’t get caught) but I have the free mind to recognize it and the free will not to buy their products as a result.
Couldn’t have happened to a more pompous purveyor of over-priced swill. I have avoided them for many years because of their political posturing.
This was one of the topics discussed by Bob Woodson yesterday in his interview on the Mark Levin program on Fox.
Surprise surprise....
It wasn’t so diabetics or fertility drug users could safely dispose of their medical delivery devices now was it....
My car radio SCAN stopped on a Glenn Beck station this forenoon, and he was discussing the 4 to 7% profit margin that Starbucks franchisees live with. 28 days’ profits pay the help and the bills, while 2 days’ profits are the owner’s. If Coronavirus gets to where most office types tele-commute from home, Starbucks’ store traffic drops 80% and many will go belly-up. FWIW.
Flew from SEATAC a while back and was floored to see sharps containers in the bathrooms on the STERILE side of the airport. How would someone go about smuggling a syringe through TSA without detection?
My BIL, a retired executive for large hospitals, has been a diabetic since he was seven years old. Often he needs to excuse himself and take care of injections for diabetes. I think he appreciates being able to dispose of the used syringes.
Hubby and I recently took a trip and drove across northern New York (state). It looked like a third world hell hole. Syringe dropoffs in every bathroom (We’d never seen any before our trip). They were everywhere. Businesses were empty to shuttered. Few people. Rundown. A very tired feeling across the entire state. It was both scary and sad.
Probably for the TSA employees.
Thanks for that. Important to bear in mind.
They should have put port-o-potties shaped like giant Starbucks cups outside of the stores. Advertising + public service + segregation.
“If Coronavirus gets to where most office types tele-commute from home, Starbucks’ store traffic drops 80% and many will go belly-up.”
That’s what is SLOWLY being priced-in to the Stock Market these past few weeks. As more of this is figured out, more will get priced-in.
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