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Starbucks to Close All U.S. Stores for Racial-Bias Education
- ben_jones 9y agoAre there any ways to tell if a corporation actually gives a damn or is just pretending for PR or other selfish purposes?
- seangrant 9y agoThe fact that they're doing it all on one day at the same time implies it's mostly about the PR
- kittiepryde 9y agoHow did you come to that conclusion? I am unsure about your line of logic here.
- seangrant 9y agoWhy would they shut down all their locations at once, losing hundreds of thousands in income, if not for the media and social attention it would receive? Simply put, why close business when these trainings can be done staggered or off store hours? That's my line of thinking.
- psychometry 9y agoOr it's simply easier to coordinate that way. Plus it makes it obvious whether a franchise/branch isn't complying with the closing.
- mmanfrin 9y agoI have kneejerk reactions sometimes to actions like this, thinking "oh they're just doing this for the PR", but I've recently start to consider what would it take for me not to have this reaction -- and I realized that I would likely have that just-for-pr reaction to any action they took, and I'm likely entirely too cynical. Closing 8,000+ stores for an afternoon feels like a sizable response, and I am going to suspend my cynicism for this and recognize that they do give a damn (even if it is influenced by PR).
- marklyon 9y agoNot the first time they've done something like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/27sbux.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/27sbux.html
- rhizome 9y agoI doubt it will be for a whole afternoon. My bet is on a "webinar" mode: 1-2hrs closure, with with something like: 20min intro; 20min talking head video; 20min "any questions?" They'll make new employees watch it and they'll post it on the corporate website ("make available").
- gehwartzen 9y agoI attribute these sorts of things to companies doing what they are designed to do; make money. The goal of this move, like most others by similar companies, is to either make more money now, make more money in the future, or minimize any future monetary losses. Not being hated by the public just happens to facilitate the aforementioned primary goal.
- gremlinsinc 9y agoI think those who run starbucks...are very astute to their 'crowd' ... and I think a lot of liberals/progressives go to starbucks. (I'm a progressive / Voted for Bernie). I think this is in part to save face and help with PR, but I think there really might be some people high up in Starbucks who truly do care.. either way though they do seem to run things more ethically than a lot of companies regardless of the motive. In the end does it really matter why someone does something or just that they do it?
- adpirz 9y agoAs an additional data point, SBUX FY 2017 revenue was 22.3 bil. Works out to almost 80 mil per day. The US has about half of their stores, but potentially a larger share of revenues. So this is costing them roughly 50 mil in lost revenue. The question is are they making a real sacrifice at that amount or paying a small sum for the PR?
- salad77 9y agoSure, wait a month then go to a starbucks store and peacefully and politely hang out for a few hours without purchasing anything. If nothing happens up till then, try to use the restroom too. Then hang out some more before leaving. If you don't spend the night in jail, then you have one data point suggesting not PR. Have a reasonable sample of people repeat the experiment in multiple locations and multiple times and carefully record and report the results to you. Collate the data points and report on the number of people arrested during the experiment. Feel free to include Starbucks in a tweet about your results when you publish.
- fencepost 9y agoIf nothing happens up till then, try to use the restroom too. Then hang out some more before leaving. This whole thing is going to have huge variation between locations. Suburban or drive - to locations often don't ever lock the bathrooms, while ones in cities are more likely to.
- unethical_ban 9y ago1. They typed "ceo" instead of CEO or C.E.O. 2. Are all retail locations of all businesses now expected to let anyone use the restroom for free? I do not know the specifics of this story other than "black person tries to use the bathroom, isn't allowed, doesn't leave, gets peacefully removed from premises". If a store doesn't let people use the restroom for free, isn't that their prerogative?
- mmanfrin 9y agoI'm confused by your 2nd point -- I think you have this confused with a different story? Two black men were arrested while waiting for a friend in a Starbucks, use of restrooms had nothing to do with this.
- tgb 9y agoThe men had asked to use the restrooms and were told they were only for customers. [1] [1] https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/us/philadelphia-starbucks-911-call/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/us/philadelphia-starbucks-911...
- unethical_ban 9y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/business/starbucks-arrests-racial-bias.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/business/starbucks-arrest... I believe you are incorrect. Two men wanted to use a SBUX restroom without purchasing anything. I guess they had to ask for a key or something? Otherwise how would sales intervene? Anyway, they were told they weren't paying customers so they couldn't. They then squatted and cops were called. I really don't know the details, and it's easy to assume either or both parties were asinine. Maybe they really were doing nothing wrong, or maybe they were disturbing customers. No news I've read characterizes the incident. In any case, even if an employee handled it poorly, it sounds like an overreaction.
- jonnybgood 9y ago> maybe they were disturbing customers. Well, we can rule that out because you can hear other customers telling the police they did absolutely nothing. Also, the reason for being in the store in the first place is that they were waiting for a friend. They had a purpose to be there.
- tenpies 9y agoCan someone explain to me what Starbucks did wrong here? As far as I've read, there were a pair of men loitering in the store for an extended period of time. They did not purchase anything so this is the very definition of loitering. The store was very busy and someone from Starbucks asked them to leave. They refused. At that point, the same person from Starbucks called the cops because they refused to leave. The cops came, and eventually arrested them after they refused to comply with instructions. They were taken to the police station, but Starbucks did not intend to press charges so they were let go. What am I missing here? What is the correct play for dealing with a non-customer that refuses to leave your store?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- izzydata 9y agoThey claim that there was a number of other people at the starbucks who also didn't order anything and weren't arrested.
- pwinnski 9y agoWhen you're Starbucks, have marketed yourself for years as a "third place" where people can hang out, and have a policy to not kick out people who aren't causing trouble, and you call the cops on the two black men, but not on the white people also sitting in the same store without purchasing anything, you've done something wrong. Other customers were speaking up, pointing out white customers sitting there without purchases, as the cops were leading the two black men out of the store in handcuffs.
- tenpies 9y agoI can buy that, but then I can't understand why they refused to leave. There is an unwritten contract between any cafe and the public: purchasing any item - even the tiniest coffee - and you also get the option of staying at the cafe for a period of time. Refusing to leave, or to purchase something, violates that contract.
- rdiddly 9y agoFoul-Mouthed Zen Master says: This is one of those problems (and there are many) that the manager could've avoided by just not giving a shit. Racism for example is nothing but giving a shit about something that doesn't deserve to have a shit given. Why even get involved with anything happening on the other side of the counter? Take the money, dispense the coffee, collect your paycheck, and read the community-college catalog so you can get the hell out of there someday! If someone is genuinely "in the way", people will repeatedly jostle past them annoyingly until they get the hint. It's a self-correcting system. If someone is such a foul presence that they're driving away customers, that's Starbuck's problem, and not really a big one for them either. You as the manager, meanwhile, have less to do because of it, not more; use that time to read the community-college catalog. If someone is actively threatening or harassing someone else, yelling at the top of his lungs, or committing some other actual literal crime, THEN you call the cops.
- jonnybgood 9y agoFor context on why: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/black-men-arrested-waiting-starbucks-180416050337967.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/black-men-arrested-wa...
- anon90 9y agoDoes anyone else think the guys looked like homeless people and that contributed to calling the police. Why weren't the guys at fault. They should have just left the store. That wha a reasonable person would have done. I've seen baristas ask white people to leave before and they've all done that.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jonnybgood 9y agoNo, they don't look homeless at all. What makes you think they're part of the homeless?
- anon90 9y agoThe one with the beard and sweatpants looks homeless. Regardless of whether they were homeless they should have left and not caused problems.
- jonnybgood 9y ago> Regardless of whether they were homeless they should have left and not caused problems. They didn't cause problems. The problems were brought to them. They were just sitting and waiting for a friend.
- anon90 9y agoThey caused problems by not leaving when they were asked it. I've seen white people be asked to leave and they've left without causing problems.
- jonnybgood 9y ago> They caused problems by not leaving when they were asked it. Not all of us like to respect unjustified requests, especially when there's a reason for doing what we're doing.
- aphextron 9y agoUnfortunately this isn't a Starbucks problem. This isn't something that can be trained for. It is the culmination of 400 years of hardcore racism pounded into the consciousness of western civilization that equates blackness with criminality, and holds us in social bondage. What you're seeing here is just a normal part of every day life for blacks in the US. The Rastas have a word for this: Babylon. While it exists, no black person can ever be free.
- ben_jones 9y agoHow do you feel about Starbucks denying access to homeless people in the same way? There is a commonality in the way humans discriminate and I feel like its a disservice to leave other marginalized groups out of this conversation.
- bbg215 9y agoI find it highly unlikely that if this same scenario occurred with two middle-aged white men dressed in chinos and dress shirts, we get the same ending with cops being called and an arrest.
- adamrezich 9y agoAll I have to say about this topic is: it's always interesting to see how Starbucks manages to put itself in the news about once or twice a year, because of some controversy... and they never end up being the bad guy!
- simonsarris 9y agoSome context for the incident here: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/8cysu4/starbucks_will_close_8000_us_stores_may_29_for/dxixmyn/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/8cysu4/starbucks_will... The guys had ~20 minutes to leave before the cops showed up, and still refused after the cops asked several times. Per the police commissioner: > On 3 different occasions, officers asked the males politely to leave the location because they were being asked to leave by employees because they were trespassing. Instead, the males continued to refuse as they had told the employees previously, and they told the officers that they were not leaving. When the call was initially made the Starbucks employees had told the males that they were going to call the police and they said go ahead and call the police we don't care. So the police get there and they are confronted with the same type of attitude. They repeatedly told that they were not leaving. In fact, there's some alleged rhetoric about 'you don't know what you're doing, you're only a $45,000 a year employee' or something to that regard.