Due to the incident of Starbucks escorting two black men out of the store, by calling the police in Philadelphia, a settlement has been reached with the city for $1. The city had to commit to working to making this Starbucks incident never happen again. Executives from Starbucks flew into Philadelphia the day after the incident occurred and were anxious to meet with the men. A settlement was also made for the men with Starbucks for an undisclosed amount.
As of last month, the policy that Starbucks had in place was that their bathrooms policy was up to the local store operator. In this Philadelphia store, bathrooms were not available to people unless they were paying customers, making it actually legal to ask people to leave, or not use the bathrooms, without making a purchase.
As of tonight, that policy is now revoked and CHANGED. Their bathrooms are now open to everyone, regardless of whether they make a purchase or not. This is a first step, it would seem, for Starbucks to make widespread amends to correct the situation and others.
Link to the video of the footage of the incident if you haven't seen it:
https://bit.ly/2HzKhTH
It's pretty interesting to talk about my girlfriend's own recent experience in my local Starbucks last week in suburban Philadelphia. She is half African American. They did everything in their power besides trip over themselves to serve her as politely and quickly as possible. The whole process of standing and waiting for a name to be called when a drink was ready, was changed to being asked to sit down and wait for the drink to be brought to her. After only a few minutes, they literally brought the drink to the table. I've never seen that happen in any Starbucks ever in this area before. Even other customers that were not minorities looked on almost laughingly as they could clearly see the staff trying way too hard. Perhaps they've been doing the "bring it to your table service" in other areas of the country, but this was new ground in Philadelphia.
This could ultimately lead to other issues that many have reported in other postings in the past where people use the bathrooms at these stores for illicit activities like drug use, for example. For now, Starbucks looks to be in a mode of damage control and seems willing to deal with the illicit use of their bathrooms, rather than be labeled as a racist brand. I am happy to see them moving faster for any reason. They run a tight ship, but it can still be a tiring experience to buy a product. Those that love it would likely wait even longer though.
I hope the impatient coffee lovers benefit from this. Even more, I am happy to see an awareness of racism get brought to light and be forced to be remediated. Let's watch for more change to come, hopefully without people getting forcefully removed from places by the police.
