WALSH: Remember When Starbucks Caved And Opened Their Bathrooms To Non-Customers?

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
In case you need a refresher course: a Starbucks manager at a location in Philadelphia came under heavy fire last spring after refusing restroom privileges to two non-customers. The men, who happened to be black, asked to use the restroom but were informed that only paying customers were granted access to the facilities. This was not a policy she invented on her own. At the time, many Starbucks locations enforced this rule, just as many other restaurants and stores enforce similar rules.


Fast forward a few months. Certain Starbucks locations, less than a year after announcing this enlightened new restroom philosophy, now must install special disposal boxes for used heroin needles. They'll also be removing regular trashcans from some bathrooms after employees expressed concern about getting pricked with needles while changing out the bags. There have been reports of condoms, alcohol bottles, and blood stains on the floors. Indeed, this bathroom free-for-all has made bathrooms ironically less accessible as some Starbucks restaurants have had to close their stalls for extended periods due to, says the New York Post, "prolonged cleaning."

It may be fairly pointed out that Starbucks probably had many of these problems even before the new policy. Yes, and that's exactly the point. That's why the policy existed in the first place. A spacious, private, single-stall bathroom at a Starbucks in an urban area is an attractive place for drug addicts, drunks, vagrants, and other assorted characters. Most businesses are not interested in becoming de facto homeless shelters or halfway homes. Historically, that's why they reserve their bathrooms and their tables for people who are actually interested in purchasing their products. It's not a fail-proof plan, but it's relatively effective. There's a reason why these needle disposal boxes only became necessary after they changed the policy.



https://www.dailywire.com/news/42002/walsh-starbucks-matt-walsh
 

Hijinx

Well-Known Member
OK I admit I am dumb, but how come Starbucks has this problem and McDonalds doesn't?

Are Starbucks customers bigger dopers?
 

BernieP

Resident PIA
Because McDonalds bathrooms are not "spacious private single stall" units?

:LOL

I saw the story on the sharps containers going in yesterday. It's a public health issue. And sadly, it's because they can lock the door while they shoot up.
I'm waiting for the first OD death in a Starbucks - well not really - but it's inevitable if addicts are shooting up.
 

glhs837

Power with Control
Starbucks bathroom.jpg

not a bad shooting up location, eh? Nobody stealing your junk, no cops harassing you.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
There's a wing place in Salt Lake City that Monello and I popped in to. They keep their restroom locked and you have to get an employee to open it for you. This is because they had so many people ODing and dying in their freaking restrooms.
 

TCROW

Well-Known Member
I never thought that Asheville NC would be an area of heavy drug activity besides weed but spent some time there recently and it is. I always knew that area to be ripe with hippys but didn’t expect to see needles in the streets.

Actually discussed this with a Starbucks employee down there. He said that Starbucks opens fairly early, 5 or 6 am in some areas of that city. The vast majority of people “awake” at that hour are junkies (unlike a place like Manhattan where city workers routinely show up that early).

Since *$ is about the only thing open, that’s of course where the junkies show up to get their fix before they get sick.

I wondered why they didn’t take the Switzerland route of putting blue lights in the bathroom so you can’t find a vein. It actually works very well
 

glhs837

Power with Control
I never thought that Asheville NC would be an area of heavy drug activity besides weed but spent some time there recently and it is. I always knew that area to be ripe with hippys but didn’t expect to see needles in the streets.

Actually discussed this with a Starbucks employee down there. He said that Starbucks opens fairly early, 5 or 6 am in some areas of that city. The vast majority of people “awake” at that hour are junkies (unlike a place like Manhattan where city workers routinely show up that early).

Since *$ is about the only thing open, that’s of course where the junkies show up to get their fix before they get sick.

I wondered why they didn’t take the Switzerland route of putting blue lights in the bathroom so you can’t find a vein. It actually works very well

Daughter lived and worked in Richmond for a year. Her Starbucks was near Carytown, and pretty nice. Occasionally she would sub at the other one over on Stuart Ave. That one, horrendous, homeless types pooing on the floor and leaving "stuff" in the bathroom constantly.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
I never thought that Asheville NC would be an area of heavy drug activity besides weed but spent some time there recently and it is.

Monello and I spent a night in Clanton, AL - pop. 8,756 - and the motel owner, who was also our bartender and a former Dallas Sheriff, informed us that Clanton has a terrible meth problem with their young people. So it's everywhere, not just in the cities.
 

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
I never thought that Asheville NC would be an area of heavy drug activity besides weed but spent some time there recently and it is. I always knew that area to be ripe with hippys but didn’t expect to see needles in the streets.

Actually discussed this with a Starbucks employee down there. He said that Starbucks opens fairly early, 5 or 6 am in some areas of that city. The vast majority of people “awake” at that hour are junkies (unlike a place like Manhattan where city workers routinely show up that early).

Since *$ is about the only thing open, that’s of course where the junkies show up to get their fix before they get sick.

I wondered why they didn’t take the Switzerland route of putting blue lights in the bathroom so you can’t find a vein. It actually works very well

I'd think the vast majority of people awake at that hour are people going to work. I'd venture to guess there are orders of magnitude more peopel going to work at 5am than going to Starbucks to shoot up.

Another thing that works are safe injection facilities.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
I'd think the vast majority of people awake at that hour are people going to work. I'd venture to guess there are orders of magnitude more peopel going to work at 5am than going to Starbucks to shoot up.

You can deny if you want to, but people who actually, you know, live in these places probably know better than you.

Another thing that works are safe injection facilities.

Really? Who's going to pay for that?
 

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
You can deny if you want to, but people who actually, you know, live in these places probably know better than you.

Really? Who's going to pay for that?

I'm not denying anything, just questioning the silly idea that the "vast majority" of people awake at 5 and 6am and going to a coffee shop are junkies looking to shoot up. Less than 0.5% of the population uses heroin and North Carolina's own fact sheet shows Buncombe County (where Asheville is) has a 6-year average "Unintentional Opioid-related Drug (heroin, Methadone, fentanyl, etc) Overdose Death Rates" of 6-10 per 100,000 people (much less than some currounding counties). Since Ashville has a population of, we'll round up to, 100,000 (and assuming the entire County's rate applies to once city in it) that would mean that about 10 people died between 2010-2016 from an opioid overdose.
https://files.nc.gov/ncdhhs/Opioid_Overdose_Factsheet_FINAL_06_27_17.pdf

Almost 230,000 people work in Asheville.
https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.nc_asheville_msa.htm

We can pull money out of no where to build a wall for a non-existant "crisis" on the border but you ask how we'd pay for a program that would not only save the lives of users (not like you care), but clean up the surrounding neighborhoods, lower Hepatitis and HIV cases from spreading due to needle sharing, and prevent places like Starbucks from having to dispose of needles themselves, or install sharps containers in their bathrooms? Act like it's a medical emergency? Then treat it like one.
 

TCROW

Well-Known Member
I'd think the vast majority of people awake at that hour are people going to work. I'd venture to guess there are orders of magnitude more peopel going to work at 5am than going to Starbucks to shoot up.

Another thing that works are safe injection facilities.

The *$ employee’s point, I think, was that in Asheville that’s not the norm. It’s a fairly sleepy town and there’s not a ton of office workers milling about at that hour. I’m sure there are exceptions.

There were several breakfast places that didn’t even open until 8 am.
 

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
The *$ employee’s point, I think, was that in Asheville that’s not the norm. It’s a fairly sleepy town and there’s not a ton of office workers milling about at that hour. I’m sure there are exceptions.

There were several breakfast places that didn’t even open until 8 am.

If it's not the norm, why open that early? If no one is awake and a vast majority of the people coming in at that hour are junkies, why not open at 8am when the junkies go hide in their caves or whatever they do and actual customers would come in? Fact is, a business wouldn't be open to supply a place for junkies to shoot up, they have to have a good amount of customers to warrant opening.

I'm not doubting that it happened. I doubt it's as prevelant as the employee makes it seem. We see that often. "In this day and age" is a common phrase that comes to mind.
 

TCROW

Well-Known Member
If it's not the norm, why open that early? If no one is awake and a vast majority of the people coming in at that hour are junkies, why not open at 8am when the junkies go hide in their caves or whatever they do and actual customers would come in? Fact is, a business wouldn't be open to supply a place for junkies to shoot up, they have to have a good amount of customers to warrant opening.

I'm not doubting that it happened. I doubt it's as prevelant as the employee makes it seem. We see that often. "In this day and age" is a common phrase that comes to mind.

You ask reasonable questions. I only struck up this conversation with the guy in relation to seeing all the needles in the streets there. This was not in relation to a sharps container in this particular location, which I dont even know if there was one installed there or not. He just used the anecdote to demonstrate than even in an otherwise sleepy mountain town like this, H is a problem.

This particular *$ was near a hotel on the west side of the city, and the hotel didn’t have a coffee place (only terrible in-room coffee), so that could be why they opened early, to capture that audience. I know other *$ that don’t open until after 7 so certainly this isn’t a corporate standard.
 

black dog

Free America
You ask reasonable questions. I only struck up this conversation with the guy in relation to seeing all the needles in the streets there. This was not in relation to a sharps container in this particular location, which I dont even know if there was one installed there or not. He just used the anecdote to demonstrate than even in an otherwise sleepy mountain town like this, H is a problem.

You want to see needles in the street, roll through Austin, IN,,a sleepy dying town in southern In that has about 4,000 residents and about 250 are HIV positive. And thats the ones that the state knows about. Its the reason that Pence signed the State needle exchange.. The meth and opiates are unbelievable in small town America, you can watch the folks where I live change over a year or two.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Inon-existant "crisis"

There's that talking point. :yay: You could get a job for a major news org - all you have to know is a few key phrases. This week that phrase is "nonexistent crisis". Nice to see that all their hard work staying on message is working with at least some people.

that would not only save the lives of users (not like you care)

I don't care, you're right. It's their choice to use drugs, I didn't make them do that and I see no reason why I should pay for their poor choices.

lower Hepatitis and HIV cases from spreading due to needle sharing

Why is that my problem and why should I have to pay for it?

prevent places like Starbucks from having to dispose of needles themselves, or install sharps containers in their bathrooms

There is a simple solution to Starbucks' problem: don't allow non-customers to use your restrooms. I see no reason why I should pay for the poor decisions of a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Securing our borders, on the other hand, IS the job of the federal government.

:smile:
 

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
There's that talking point. :yay: You could get a job for a major news org - all you have to know is a few key phrases. This week that phrase is "nonexistent crisis". Nice to see that all their hard work staying on message is working with at least some people.

I don't care, you're right. It's their choice to use drugs, I didn't make them do that and I see no reason why I should pay for their poor choices.

Why is that my problem and why should I have to pay for it?

There is a simple solution to Starbucks' problem: don't allow non-customers to use your restrooms. I see no reason why I should pay for the poor decisions of a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Securing our borders, on the other hand, IS the job of the federal government.

:smile:

Why should you pay for any public health issue? Like, at all?
 
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