Two men arrested for sitting in Starbucks while being black

Unless the facts have badly distorted in the media, this is an egregious and obviously racist reaction on the part of the employees. They should be fired. The case deserves attention and public discussion for the very obvious racial bias displayed by the employees, which, unfortunately, is much too common. Starbucks needs to apologize profusely to the men and to the public at large, have a training program for employees to discuss this incident and ensure it doesn't happen again, and the men who were arrested should IMO get some recompense beyond an apology.

derail/

That said (and not at all to take away from the point that it was absolutely preposterous to call the police under that circumstances described here), I've been seeing a lot of "white people get to hang out at Starbucks forever, use the bathrooms and never buy things!" on Twitter. And, well, at least in NYC, in my own experience, that isn't true. I'll note that I've generally been denied access to a Starbucks bathroom (and bathrooms in other restaurants in NYC) when I haven't bought anything, and indeed, I don't even ask unless I'm really desperate. I can't speak to other cities, but denial of bathroom access to anyone but people who've bought something is quite common in NYC, where we have a distinct shortage of public bathrooms -- most places won't let you use them unless you've bought something.  (There's a pizza place near me that won't even let customers use their bathrooms -- they are for employees only.  I can photograph the sign if you don't believe me.)   And, hey, I get it. Otherwise, you'd have a stream of tourists, homeless people, etc. using the bathrooms all day, creating a lot of extra work for employees, and no room at tables for paying customers.  If I'm with people, they order drinks while I use the bathroom, and the problem is solved.   If I'm alone, I will explain my situation, order my drink, pay for it, and ask them to wait to make it until I come out of the bathroom. And when I meet people at Starbucks, we all get our drinks when we arrive -- we generally do not wait for the whole group to arrive to order. Many Starbucks and other establishments in NYC won't let you hang around for long without ordering anything. The "sit and work for hours after buying one cup of coffee" is much less of a thing than it once was here. Seating is generally at a premium, and there often isn't enough.  If I try to write or do work in a coffee shop for an extended period of time, or if I'm hanging with friends for an extended period of time, I get more than one cup of coffee, and if I need to switch to decaf, that's what I do.

This is doubly true in independent coffee shops, which, not being chains, need to keep a stream of paying customers if they are to stay in business.  

Indeed, most restaurants here won't seat you until your entire party has arrived. Maybe that's not a thing in other cities with more space; it is certainly a thing here. Indeed, I won't go to dinner anymore with a couple of chronically late people because I got fucking tired of waiting outside for them to arrive, having our reservation given away, etc.

THAT said, no one has EVER called the police on me or one of my friends, or threatened to do so. (What I HAVE gotten is a "you'll have to buy another cup of coffee if you want to hang out/use the bathroom."  With which I have invariably complied.) The fact that this happened here was horrible, and IMO clearly racist.

/end derail

From what I've read, I don't see how the cops can be blamed here. A store is private property. If the store owner--or their agent in charge--asks someone to leave, I believe they are within their rights. The person so asked has the option to make a stink of course, by calling the head office and potentially engaging in legal action (if they feel they have been discriminated against or the like). So the cops, when summoned by ownership or management, are going to enforce this. The cops asked them to leave--per the store's request--and they kept refusing. The cops did what they had to do, I think.

I still think that the Starbucks employee(s) overreacted by calling the police and there should be consequences for that, unless other facts come to light.*

That said, I still have some sympathy here for businesses like Starbucks (though per Cass, independent businesses garner much more), where policies designed to encourage people to hang out are constantly abused. In my neck of the woods, one of worst class of abusers are independent tutors, who seem to think using Starbucks as a location for their business is perfectly allowable, even when they don't bother to buy anything, whatsoever.







* Again, belligerence on the part of the two men could change this. There is nothing indicating such, but it is possible that the witnesses misses such behavior.