16 ms·

Starbucks may close its bathrooms to the public again

31 points by saguntum 4y ago

jwilk 4y ago
Text-only version: https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_e596a4452e66f1c24519e7badbfa7fc1 https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_e596a4452e66f1c24519e7badb...
- Vladimof 4y ago
  Non-CNN version: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/starbucks-ceo-says-public-bathrooms-might-soon-end-unions-shouldnt-lead-our-people/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/starbucks-ceo-says-pub...
  - platz 4y ago
    holy popups+ads, wow
    - Vladimof 4y ago
      I didn't know people were still lacking ad blockers... so I don't tend to check them without an ad blocker first before I post
      - platz 4y ago
        I don't 'lack' ad blockers; I choose not to use them.
GenerocUsername 4y ago
So sad how small segments of our population can ruin good things for others. Wish we as a society could meaningfully discuss these sorts of issues, our inability to tackle reality hurts everyone
- mc32 4y ago
  Isn't that always the case and the reason we "Can't have nice things"? Most people are "honest and law-abiding", but you have a few rogues, either civilians or in government, etc., who spoil it for the masses of well behaved people?
  - nwienert 4y ago
    It’s always the case in the US, but certainly not the case in many other places.
    - xboxnolifes 4y ago
      Small segments of the population are the cause of basically every criminal law in every country.
  - thatjoeoverthr 4y ago
    Not every culture has the same “rogue rate”. Others have mentioned Japan. Of course, Japan has rogues. But do they have enough to close your bathrooms? Maybe not. My country has rogues. But I’ve also got my wallet back every time I ever lost it. It leaves an impression. It builds the culture’s brand in a positive way.
- zo1 4y ago
  It's the soft bullying of the suffering, weak and oppressed. By nature of being sufferers in life, they get a non-zero amount of sympathy, free-passes and get out of jail free cards. Instead of us taking care of them and solving the issue directly, we literally ignore them and then get high and mighty when circumstances happens or if someone dares to be mean to them.
phendrenad2 4y ago
A good lesson to be learned here about public opinion. Bathrooms were reopened after people raised an outcry over a perceived racial injustice. At the height of such outcrys in the USA. Now, that movement has faded, and at the same time, the public is turning against San Francisco's Chelsea Boudin and others who tried to be permissive with the homeless.
- kevingadd 4y ago
  > Bathrooms were reopened after people raised an outcry over a perceived racial injustice. "The new policy for Starbucks’ 8,000 company-owned US stores comes in the aftermath of an explosive incident last month in Philadelphia, in which two black men were asked to leave a store after using the restroom without making a purchase, and were arrested for trespassing after they refused. The episode triggered protests as well as apologies from Starbucks officials and the Philadelphia police, and led the company to schedule a day of racial-bias training on May 29." It appears to me that Starbucks openly acknowledged they had a problem. Before this point, there was no official policy so it was up to individual Starbucks employees to decide whether you looked "too shady" to be allowed into the restroom, so the permissive policy was an improvement. Changing from that to an explicitly not permissive policy is also an improvement over how things were before, because now it's clear instead of subjective and down to individual employee biases. Clear policies are good that way! > the public is turning against San Francisco's Chelsea Boudin and others who tried to be permissive with the homeless. Chesa Boudin's recall was not meaningfully any representation of a shift in public opinion. He won his office originally with a small portion of the vote due to the ranked choice voting used for the office, and the recall was a yes/no. It was inevitable that once a well-funded recall campaign ran, he would struggle to get over 50% 'yes' votes when he failed to get 50% in his original election. In general, it is very easy to recall politicians in California, and the campaign to remove him was funded to the tune of over $7M usd - way way more than every other measure on the ballot put together. In practice the people who voted for him before voted for him again, and the people who didn't vote for him before didn't vote for him again. In the end, nothing is likely to change, since SF's problems are not something an AG can solve by themselves. The police were actively refusing to arrest known criminals even when his office asked them to.
imchillyb 4y ago
> Schultz has said in the past Starbucks didn’t need unions... Of course not. Unions aren't for the corporation, they're for the masses being screwed by the corporations.
thegrimmest 4y ago
It's always a shame when ideologically motivated policy doesn't line up with reality. Bathrooms are closed to non-customers because the burden of dealing with the occasional mentally ill drug addict isn't worth the risk or expense. This was just as true a few years ago when the policy was changed as it is now, when it has been quietly changed back. We can't have nice things because not enough of us are nice people. In places like Japan, where people are fundamentally more well-behaved, they can have nice things. I dare someone to ask why Japan doesn't have a problem with violent, drug-addicted, vagrants.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  Because they believe in collectivism. If someone is peeing on the street, they think oh how this makes my country look. In SF someone peeing in the street thinks aaah so much relief. It's like how killer whales share their sense of self with others in the pod.
  - thegrimmest 4y ago
    I don't think you need collectivism per se, all you need is functioning police. If you piss on the floor in a cafe in Japan, you'll be arrested, charged, found guilty, and sent to prison. This process is swift, effective and severe, and doesn't include any public outcry about racism or marginalization. Japanese prisons are inhumane by American standards, but cheap and very effective. They don't allow prisoners to interact or form a prison culture, so they don't function as criminal training centers. Consequently, crime rates in Japan are among the lowest in the world, despite declining economic conditions and dense populations.
    - vimy 4y ago
      Everyone is isolated in prison? You can’t talk to other prisoners?
      - thegrimmest 4y ago
        Yes. > When and how to speak. Strict silence is observed the majority of the time. During leisure times, talking should be done in a low voice so as not to disturb others. Utmost respect must be used when addressing guards or punishments will follow. 1. https://gaijinass.com/2017/03/30/brutal-realities-of-prison-in-japan/ https://gaijinass.com/2017/03/30/brutal-realities-of-prison-...
avalys 4y ago
I got stuck overnight in LA last year. Booked a hotel near the airport. Woke up early the next morning and walked a few blocks to a Starbucks. An old homeless man wandered in, wearing filthy clothing but brand new white sneakers that someone had presumably donated. Speaking loudly to himself about something. Fished around in his jacket for a while and produced some kind of gift card, and ordered a coffee. Then walked to the corner of the store and took a piss on the floor. An unsolvable problem for the most “progressive” state in the richest country in the world, apparently.
- djbusby 4y ago
  We made it a problem when we stopped caring for our mentally ill. A State run asylum is not perfect but is orders of magnitude better than on your own on the street.
  - pydry 4y ago
    Pushing people out on the streets due to eye watering rents also literally drives people insane. This is as much about tax policy and wealth inequality.
    - namecheapTA 4y ago
      If rent wasnt super high, where would the person that happily rents an apartment for $4k a month actually live? Since his apartment wouldn't be available as someone paying $900 a month would still be in it.
      - joecot 4y ago
        We can just build more housing. Landlords and home owners in California are addicted to their continuously rising property values. To the point where there was a thing called a "California Refi" where people would just refinance their house once a year to take more cash out because the property value would have gone up another 50k. Many Californians acknowledge that there needs to be more housing built, but many of them are also NIMBYs who don't want multi-family housing built in their areas, because it'd lower their personal property value if there was more housing available.
dgellow 4y ago
That’s so weird to read, in Western Europe you just ask someone working there for a code to open the door and can use Starbucks bathrooms freely (or you get it printed on your bill if you bought something). In some countries you have a small fee to pay if you’re not consuming anything, for example 0.5€ is common in Germany. I couldn’t really imagine to not have access to bathrooms, it’s such a critical thing.
- mgraczyk 4y ago
  In this US, most bathrooms are open and don't require a code. In some US cities, you have to get a code because people will camp in the bathrooms to use drugs. In most places where I live (San Francisco) it's easy to get access to the bathroom for free if you don't look like you're about to do heroin.
  - kevingadd 4y ago
    During covid something like 70-80% of businesses on the US west coast I can think of closed their bathrooms to the public and even now if I stop in at a restaurant for take-out (or even dine-in!) the odds are good that they don't let customers use the restroom anymore. I stopped off to buy gas during a drive a couple weeks ago and the gas station didn't have a customer-accessible restroom, neither did the Subway across the street, or the Dominoes next to it, or the grocery store next to that. I guess not wanting to sterilize the bathroom surfaces hourly served as a good excuse to not make them available, and they're in no hurry to reverse it.
    - mgraczyk 4y ago
      You have to ask nicely. "Out of order" just means "no homeless people".
      - kevingadd 4y ago
        No, you quite literally will not be allowed to use it, it's store policy. We're not talking "out of order" signs here
gigatexal 4y ago
This sucks. While traveling across Europe McDonald's and Starbucks's bathrooms have been such a boon to us when we needed one in a pinch and there wasn't a paid for one near by. We've always bought something to thank them for the services but that they're there to use even if we didn't pay them is really, really nice. I can imagine they'd be a horror to clean if abused. I used to clean bathrooms, golf carts, and pick range balls in in high school for a local mid-priced golf range and it was the bathrooms that I always dreaded. They were always disgusting -- and you couldn't use them unless you paid to play nine holes or bought golf balls to hit. Imagine how bad a free toilet might be -- then again, every time I've had to use a Starbucks bathroom they've been immaculate -- likely because some poor employee had to keep them so.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
What is really missing in American cities are public bathrooms, like in Europe. Pay 25 cents and you get 5 min.
- sofixa 4y ago
  In Paris there's a decent amount of free public bathrooms with a time limit (20mins i think).
- tomjen3 4y ago
  That is because there was a _huge_ outcry against it back in the day. As I recall it, several states outright outlawed it.
morninglight 4y ago
As a longtime resident of Tokyo, I commuted through Shinjuku station. The long pedestrian underpass from the station had a strong odor of urine and was filled with people living in cardboard boxes. And it is not just Tokyo. Poverty is everywhere. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tokyo+homeless&hps=1&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tokyo+homeless&hps=1&iax=images&ia... .
- qzw 4y ago
  Shhhh... You're ruining all the "we can have a utopia if we would only embrace more Japanese-style authoritarianism" narratives in this thread.
reaperducer 4y ago
Already done. Long ago. Within two months of Starbucks' big attention-grabbing press release about public bathrooms and charging points, the Starbucks where I lived installed keypad locks on the restrooms and bolted metal covers over all of the power outlets. Recently, the Starbuckses where I live have removed all of the seating, and now refuse to give water to homeless people. Starbucks' increasing hostility toward human beings is the reason I no longer go there for myself. Only when I'm picking up something for my wife. There are even Starbucks locations now that are drive-through only, with the sidewalk-facing side just a door for the employees and a lot of blacked out glass where a cafe should be. Great way to destroy a neighborhood, Starbucks!

31 points by saguntum 4y ago

Text-only version: https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_e596a4452e66f1c24519e7badbfa7fc1 https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_e596a4452e66f1c24519e7badb...

Vladimof 4y ago
Non-CNN version: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/starbucks-ceo-says-public-bathrooms-might-soon-end-unions-shouldnt-lead-our-people/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/starbucks-ceo-says-pub...
- platz 4y ago
  holy popups+ads, wow
  - Vladimof 4y ago
    I didn't know people were still lacking ad blockers... so I don't tend to check them without an ad blocker first before I post
    - platz 4y ago
      I don't 'lack' ad blockers; I choose not to use them.

GenerocUsername 4y ago

So sad how small segments of our population can ruin good things for others. Wish we as a society could meaningfully discuss these sorts of issues, our inability to tackle reality hurts everyone

mc32 4y ago
Isn't that always the case and the reason we "Can't have nice things"? Most people are "honest and law-abiding", but you have a few rogues, either civilians or in government, etc., who spoil it for the masses of well behaved people?
- nwienert 4y ago
  It’s always the case in the US, but certainly not the case in many other places.
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    Small segments of the population are the cause of basically every criminal law in every country.
- thatjoeoverthr 4y ago
  Not every culture has the same “rogue rate”. Others have mentioned Japan. Of course, Japan has rogues. But do they have enough to close your bathrooms? Maybe not. My country has rogues. But I’ve also got my wallet back every time I ever lost it. It leaves an impression. It builds the culture’s brand in a positive way.
zo1 4y ago
It's the soft bullying of the suffering, weak and oppressed. By nature of being sufferers in life, they get a non-zero amount of sympathy, free-passes and get out of jail free cards. Instead of us taking care of them and solving the issue directly, we literally ignore them and then get high and mighty when circumstances happens or if someone dares to be mean to them.

phendrenad2 4y ago

A good lesson to be learned here about public opinion. Bathrooms were reopened after people raised an outcry over a perceived racial injustice. At the height of such outcrys in the USA. Now, that movement has faded, and at the same time, the public is turning against San Francisco's Chelsea Boudin and others who tried to be permissive with the homeless.

kevingadd 4y ago
> Bathrooms were reopened after people raised an outcry over a perceived racial injustice. "The new policy for Starbucks’ 8,000 company-owned US stores comes in the aftermath of an explosive incident last month in Philadelphia, in which two black men were asked to leave a store after using the restroom without making a purchase, and were arrested for trespassing after they refused. The episode triggered protests as well as apologies from Starbucks officials and the Philadelphia police, and led the company to schedule a day of racial-bias training on May 29." It appears to me that Starbucks openly acknowledged they had a problem. Before this point, there was no official policy so it was up to individual Starbucks employees to decide whether you looked "too shady" to be allowed into the restroom, so the permissive policy was an improvement. Changing from that to an explicitly not permissive policy is also an improvement over how things were before, because now it's clear instead of subjective and down to individual employee biases. Clear policies are good that way! > the public is turning against San Francisco's Chelsea Boudin and others who tried to be permissive with the homeless. Chesa Boudin's recall was not meaningfully any representation of a shift in public opinion. He won his office originally with a small portion of the vote due to the ranked choice voting used for the office, and the recall was a yes/no. It was inevitable that once a well-funded recall campaign ran, he would struggle to get over 50% 'yes' votes when he failed to get 50% in his original election. In general, it is very easy to recall politicians in California, and the campaign to remove him was funded to the tune of over $7M usd - way way more than every other measure on the ballot put together. In practice the people who voted for him before voted for him again, and the people who didn't vote for him before didn't vote for him again. In the end, nothing is likely to change, since SF's problems are not something an AG can solve by themselves. The police were actively refusing to arrest known criminals even when his office asked them to.

imchillyb 4y ago

> Schultz has said in the past Starbucks didn’t need unions... Of course not. Unions aren't for the corporation, they're for the masses being screwed by the corporations.

thegrimmest 4y ago

It's always a shame when ideologically motivated policy doesn't line up with reality. Bathrooms are closed to non-customers because the burden of dealing with the occasional mentally ill drug addict isn't worth the risk or expense. This was just as true a few years ago when the policy was changed as it is now, when it has been quietly changed back. We can't have nice things because not enough of us are nice people. In places like Japan, where people are fundamentally more well-behaved, they can have nice things. I dare someone to ask why Japan doesn't have a problem with violent, drug-addicted, vagrants.

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
Because they believe in collectivism. If someone is peeing on the street, they think oh how this makes my country look. In SF someone peeing in the street thinks aaah so much relief. It's like how killer whales share their sense of self with others in the pod.
- thegrimmest 4y ago
  I don't think you need collectivism per se, all you need is functioning police. If you piss on the floor in a cafe in Japan, you'll be arrested, charged, found guilty, and sent to prison. This process is swift, effective and severe, and doesn't include any public outcry about racism or marginalization. Japanese prisons are inhumane by American standards, but cheap and very effective. They don't allow prisoners to interact or form a prison culture, so they don't function as criminal training centers. Consequently, crime rates in Japan are among the lowest in the world, despite declining economic conditions and dense populations.
  - vimy 4y ago
    Everyone is isolated in prison? You can’t talk to other prisoners?
    - thegrimmest 4y ago
      Yes. > When and how to speak. Strict silence is observed the majority of the time. During leisure times, talking should be done in a low voice so as not to disturb others. Utmost respect must be used when addressing guards or punishments will follow. 1. https://gaijinass.com/2017/03/30/brutal-realities-of-prison-in-japan/ https://gaijinass.com/2017/03/30/brutal-realities-of-prison-...

avalys 4y ago

I got stuck overnight in LA last year. Booked a hotel near the airport. Woke up early the next morning and walked a few blocks to a Starbucks. An old homeless man wandered in, wearing filthy clothing but brand new white sneakers that someone had presumably donated. Speaking loudly to himself about something. Fished around in his jacket for a while and produced some kind of gift card, and ordered a coffee. Then walked to the corner of the store and took a piss on the floor. An unsolvable problem for the most “progressive” state in the richest country in the world, apparently.

djbusby 4y ago
We made it a problem when we stopped caring for our mentally ill. A State run asylum is not perfect but is orders of magnitude better than on your own on the street.
- pydry 4y ago
  Pushing people out on the streets due to eye watering rents also literally drives people insane. This is as much about tax policy and wealth inequality.
  - namecheapTA 4y ago
    If rent wasnt super high, where would the person that happily rents an apartment for $4k a month actually live? Since his apartment wouldn't be available as someone paying $900 a month would still be in it.
    - joecot 4y ago
      We can just build more housing. Landlords and home owners in California are addicted to their continuously rising property values. To the point where there was a thing called a "California Refi" where people would just refinance their house once a year to take more cash out because the property value would have gone up another 50k. Many Californians acknowledge that there needs to be more housing built, but many of them are also NIMBYs who don't want multi-family housing built in their areas, because it'd lower their personal property value if there was more housing available.

dgellow 4y ago

That’s so weird to read, in Western Europe you just ask someone working there for a code to open the door and can use Starbucks bathrooms freely (or you get it printed on your bill if you bought something). In some countries you have a small fee to pay if you’re not consuming anything, for example 0.5€ is common in Germany. I couldn’t really imagine to not have access to bathrooms, it’s such a critical thing.

mgraczyk 4y ago
In this US, most bathrooms are open and don't require a code. In some US cities, you have to get a code because people will camp in the bathrooms to use drugs. In most places where I live (San Francisco) it's easy to get access to the bathroom for free if you don't look like you're about to do heroin.
- kevingadd 4y ago
  During covid something like 70-80% of businesses on the US west coast I can think of closed their bathrooms to the public and even now if I stop in at a restaurant for take-out (or even dine-in!) the odds are good that they don't let customers use the restroom anymore. I stopped off to buy gas during a drive a couple weeks ago and the gas station didn't have a customer-accessible restroom, neither did the Subway across the street, or the Dominoes next to it, or the grocery store next to that. I guess not wanting to sterilize the bathroom surfaces hourly served as a good excuse to not make them available, and they're in no hurry to reverse it.
  - mgraczyk 4y ago
    You have to ask nicely. "Out of order" just means "no homeless people".
    - kevingadd 4y ago
      No, you quite literally will not be allowed to use it, it's store policy. We're not talking "out of order" signs here

gigatexal 4y ago

This sucks. While traveling across Europe McDonald's and Starbucks's bathrooms have been such a boon to us when we needed one in a pinch and there wasn't a paid for one near by. We've always bought something to thank them for the services but that they're there to use even if we didn't pay them is really, really nice. I can imagine they'd be a horror to clean if abused. I used to clean bathrooms, golf carts, and pick range balls in in high school for a local mid-priced golf range and it was the bathrooms that I always dreaded. They were always disgusting -- and you couldn't use them unless you paid to play nine holes or bought golf balls to hit. Imagine how bad a free toilet might be -- then again, every time I've had to use a Starbucks bathroom they've been immaculate -- likely because some poor employee had to keep them so.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

What is really missing in American cities are public bathrooms, like in Europe. Pay 25 cents and you get 5 min.

sofixa 4y ago
In Paris there's a decent amount of free public bathrooms with a time limit (20mins i think).
tomjen3 4y ago
That is because there was a _huge_ outcry against it back in the day. As I recall it, several states outright outlawed it.

morninglight 4y ago

As a longtime resident of Tokyo, I commuted through Shinjuku station. The long pedestrian underpass from the station had a strong odor of urine and was filled with people living in cardboard boxes. And it is not just Tokyo. Poverty is everywhere. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tokyo+homeless&hps=1&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tokyo+homeless&hps=1&iax=images&ia... .

qzw 4y ago
Shhhh... You're ruining all the "we can have a utopia if we would only embrace more Japanese-style authoritarianism" narratives in this thread.

reaperducer 4y ago

Already done. Long ago. Within two months of Starbucks' big attention-grabbing press release about public bathrooms and charging points, the Starbucks where I lived installed keypad locks on the restrooms and bolted metal covers over all of the power outlets. Recently, the Starbuckses where I live have removed all of the seating, and now refuse to give water to homeless people. Starbucks' increasing hostility toward human beings is the reason I no longer go there for myself. Only when I'm picking up something for my wife. There are even Starbucks locations now that are drive-through only, with the sidewalk-facing side just a door for the employees and a lot of blacked out glass where a cafe should be. Great way to destroy a neighborhood, Starbucks!