Starbucks
incident
Prepared by Bill
Bowden for OLLI class, “Lifelong Philosphy”
Meeting of May
11, 2018
Sources
USA Today
Associated Press
NPR
The Washington Post
CNBC
Good Morning America
Eater.com (“The
freshest news for the food world every day”)
Sequence of
events
April 12, 2018
Two African American
men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, enter downtown Philadelphia
Rittenhouse Square Starbucks.
They ask to use the
restroom, informed they are for customers only. Asked if they would
like to order something, they say no. Say they are waiting for a
friend.
The manager calls
the police and says the men are trespassing. The police arrive, ask
the men to leave. They refuse. They are arrested, handcuffed, and
taken away.
The friend they were
waiting for shows up as they are being arrested.
Starbucks declines
to press charges. Two to three hours later, they are released from
custody.
Observations from
various media
A police report says
the men cursed at the manager when told the restrooms were for paying
customers only. (NPR)
The manager called
the police because they declined to buy anything. (USA Today)
Police commissioner
Richard Ross said the officers gave the men the choice of buying
something or leaving. They were asked politely three times to leave.
(NPR)
Ross later
apologized for the arrests, saying neither he nor his officers were
aware of the lack of a clear Starbucks policy on non-paying
customers. (Eater.com)
Starbucks’ policy
on hanging out at its stores is not clearly dictated in any company
directives. The company refused to comment on this. (Eater.com)
A Starbucks spokesman said, “In this particular store, the
guidelines were that partners (managers, presumably)
must ask unpaying customers to leave the store, and police were to be
called if they refused.” (The Washington Post)
Rashon and Donte say
they were given no reason as to why they had to leave. (Good Morning,
America)
Starbucks CEO Kevin
Johnson said, “The basis for the call to the Philadelphia police
department was wrong.” (NPR)
Executive director
of Starbucks Howard Schultz said the police were called because the
men were African American. “I’m embarrassed by that. I’m
ashamed of that.” (The Washington Post)
Rashon and Donte
contend this kind of thing happens “Every day, all the time,
everywhere.” (AP)
Starbucks will close
more than 8,000 stores on May 29 for an afternoon of “racial bias
education” training for over 175,000 employees.
Bill’s
observations
There appears to be
confusion over an official Starbucks policy about making a purchase
or leaving. There are anecdotes about customers staying for hours and
not always refilling their drinks.
When police officers
tell you to do something and you refuse, you can be in violation,
whether or not you are actually guilty of anything. If you say you
weren’t’ speeding and try to drive away from the highway
patrolman citing you, you are guilty of not cooperating with law
enforcement. Because Rashon and Donte felt they had done nothing
wrong, they declined the opportunity to avoid arrest by either
ordering something or leaving (says Police Commissioner Ross.)
Millions of people
patronize Starbucks every day. There are about 200,000 Starbucks
employees. It’s risky to use the Philadelphia incident as an
indication of widespread racism within Starbucks. How do you assess
this?
