Starbucks Reverses Open-Door Policy - You Now Have to Be Paying Customer to Stay or Use Bathroom

Starbucks Reverses Open-Door Policy - You Now Have to Be Paying Customer to Stay or Use Bathroom

Coffee giant Starbucks is now requiring that people make a purchase if they want to hang out at its coffee shops or use its restrooms. 

The pronouncement reverses its “open doors” policy after nearly seven years. 

Starbucks said this week that a new code of conduct will be posted in all company-owned stores in North America, and will also ban discrimination or harassment, consumption of outside alcohol, smoking, vaping, drug use and panhandling.

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“The new rules reverse an open-door policy put in place in 2018, after two Black men were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks where they had gone for a business meeting. The incident at that individual store, which had a policy of asking non-paying customers to leave, was caught on video and was a major embarrassment for the company,” reported CBS.

“The change also comes under the new leadership of Brian Niccol, who was hired from Chipotle last year to revitalize the struggling coffee chain. Niccol has vowed to make Starbucks' locations ‘inviting places to linger,’ with the goal of reestablishing the chain as the nation's ‘community coffeehouse,’” CBS continued. 

 

Starbucks in RI 

As GoLocal reported in December, “Nationwide Starbucks Strike Hits Providence on Christmas Eve:"

The recent national employee strikes at coffee giant chain Starbucks have come to Providence. 

On Tuesday, a picket line had formed outside of the One Financial Plaza location in the city’s financial district. 

Read more here.