Footage of two black men handcuffed in Starbucks prompts police investigation

[Paladin3]

I’m guessing that Starbucks probably has a corporate wide policy on asking people to leave and/or involving police via invoking trespassing laws.

That being said, I’m sure those policy statements are probably fairly generic and provide a good amount of discretion to the local store manager who is normally expected to typically de-escalate the situation.

The policy then probably provides examples of increasingly more vigorous steps which can be invoked. All likely come with the expectation for the local manager to use good judgment and principles of hospitality while reserving the right to ask a customer to leave as a last resort.

I’m guessing SBUX corpororate would probably only expect the “asked to leave” / trespassing option to be invoked by a local manager when a customer is behaving in a disruptive or violent fashion and that doesn’t seem to be the case here. The very real possibility this was also a case of discrimination might also lead corporate to make the statement that this was not a justified removal as well.

If more evidence turns up later (e.g. video footage etc) corporate can also apologize to the store manager later. Or give them a legal settlement in private which would almost certainly be less costly then the lost sales and reputation damage had they not proactively denounced this as a public relations matter.

I manage a snack shack for our city at our local beach resort during the summer. My first and last question to the employee who asked those men to leave would be "did you need the table?" If not, she fucked up.

If I don't need your table you are more than welcome to hang out as long as you want, assume you are not causing any trouble. Even if you are causing trouble it's my job as a manager to politely address the situation doing everything I can to not kill your fun or the fun of any of my other guests. Most folks are reasonable and respond to respect and politeness in kind.

My job is to make sure every guest who comes into my shop or visits our beach is having fun and receives world class service. If everyone in the hospitality industry thought the same we wouldn't have this problem.

That still leaves me screwed if I am forced to ask a minority guess to leave and they choose to play the race card, because anyone who questions a racism accusation is often labeled racist for it.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Shes accountable to the cops and her manager in this situation. She's not accountable to you.

FYI: She's the manager of the store.

 

[WelshBloke]

FYI: She's the manager of the store.

She still has a manager though?

 

[Thebobo]

Bad judgement by the SB manager for allowing this to escalate. Bet she is gone soon.

 

[senseamp]

She has no powers of arrest and no power to make the police arrest anyone. She was neither Judge nor Jury in this situation. If the police did wrong when thats on them.

Correct, and as long as I don't arrest her, I can proceed to publicly shame and/or not do business with her.

 

[senseamp]

This I’ll strongly push back against. Once a business asks you to leave then asks the police to assist, you go from customer to trespasser. Sue the business later for violating public accommodation laws or whatever but you still need to respect the law yourself. Refusing to cooperate to the point where the police need to remove you in cuffs is just creating another bad situation from the first.

It's called non-violent civil disobedience. If you are willing to get peacefully arrested to expose an injustice being perpetrated, that's how change happens.

 

[WelshBloke]

Correct, and as long as I don't arrest her, I can proceed to publicly shame...

No one said you couldn't. That you can doesn't make it the correct or a proportionate response though, and her best response to you is to ignore you.

 

[WelshBloke]

It's called non-violent civil disobedience. If you are willing to get peacefully arrested to expose an injustice being perpetrated, that's how change happens.

Or they could have just bought a coffee.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

It's called non-violent civil disobedience. If you are willing to get peacefully arrested to expose an injustice being perpetrated, that's how change happens.

And if you think fighting for the ability to loiter makes a person an agent of change you have deeply, deeply fucked up priorities and a pathetically low bar for courage.

Whatever the managers motivation was, they were breaking the law, period. They have no right to be there if they're not a customer, period. And it's far more likely that they're scammers looking for a payday than freedom fighters hoping to be the next Rosa Parks. All they had to do was respect the law, wait outside until the third guy got there and then go in and sit down. Easy peasy.

Try going to a real restaurant and squatting at a table without ordering. You will be ushered out no matter what color you are. Tables are for paying customers.

 

[senseamp]

And if you think fighting for the ability to loiter makes a person an agent of change you have deeply, deeply fucked up priorities and a pathetically low bar for courage.
Whatever the managers motivation was, they were breaking the law, period. They have no right to be there if they're not a customer, period. And it's far more likely that they're scammers looking for a payday than freedom fighters hoping to be the next Rosa Parks. All they had to do was respect the law, wait outside until the third guy got there and then go in and sit down. Easy peasy.
Try going to a real restaurant and squatting at a table without ordering. You will be ushered out no matter what color you are. Tables are for paying customers.

So if I go to a cafe and wait for my friends to arrive before ordering, I am loitering? Or depends on my race?
P.S. Your theory is they went to Starbucks, sat down, and didn't do anything because they were looking for a payday?
1. Go to Starbucks.
2. Sit Down and do nothing.
3. ?????
4. Profit!
Brilliant!

 

[Sunburn74]

And if you think fighting for the ability to loiter makes a person an agent of change you have deeply, deeply fucked up priorities and a pathetically low bar for courage.

Whatever the managers motivation was, they were breaking the law, period. They have no right to be there if they're not a customer, period. And it's far more likely that they're scammers looking for a payday than freedom fighters hoping to be the next Rosa Parks. All they had to do was respect the law, wait outside until the third guy got there and then go in and sit down. Easy peasy.

Try going to a real restaurant and squatting at a table without ordering. You will be ushered out no matter what color you are. Tables are for paying customers.

If the CEO of the company says it was wrong and racially motivated why are we arguing?

 

[WelshBloke]

So if I go to a cafe and wait for my friends to arrive before ordering, I am loitering?

It depends.

Or depends on my race?

No.

 

[senseamp]

It depends. No.

Well, if it's not race, she should come forward and explain it. But she won't. You can hire her and expose your business to what is happening to Starbucks this week.

 

[WelshBloke]

Well, if it's not race, she should come forward and explain it.

She should come forward and explain my answer to your question?

 

[Paladin3]

If the CEO of the company says it was wrong and racially motivated why are we arguing?

I didn't read anything from their CEO that said it was racially motivated. Do you have a link?

 

[Paratus]

And if you think fighting for the ability to loiter makes a person an agent of change you have deeply, deeply fucked up priorities and a pathetically low bar for courage.

Whatever the managers motivation was, they were breaking the law, period. They have no right to be there if they're not a customer, period. And it's far more likely that they're scammers looking for a payday than freedom fighters hoping to be the next Rosa Parks. All they had to do was respect the law, wait outside until the third guy got there and then go in and sit down. Easy peasy.

Try going to a real restaurant and squatting at a table without ordering. You will be ushered out no matter what color you are. Tables are for paying customers.

Having gone to many restaurants with coworkers and friends almost every restaurant was willing to accommodate us until our entire party was available.

And it’s far more likely they were just a couple of guys waiting for their friend to show before ordering than some kind of scammers.

 

[Paladin3]

Well, if it's not race, she should come forward and explain it. But she won't. You can hire her and expose your business to what is happening to Starbucks this week.

You will never hear an explanation from Starbucks. If they claim innocence it will only galvanize their opposition into calling for more blood. Some are already calling for the CEO to step down on Twitter. It's better for them to show remorse and throw themselves on the mercy of the mob.

 

[Victorian Gray]

She still has a manager though?

I'm guessing some type of district manager.

 

[Sunburn74]

I didn't read anything from their CEO that said it was racially motivated. Do you have a link?

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/15/us/starbucks-statement-philadelphia-arrest/index.html

You can read the full statement. Clearly he is upset by racially profiling and specifically says that Starbucks is against it. He's not throwing in that for fun or because a literary muse whispered it into his ear.

A small excerpt
"First, to once again express our deepest apologies to the two men who were arrested with a goal of doing whatever we can to make things right. Second, to let you know of our plans to investigate the pertinent facts and make any necessary changes to our practices that would help prevent such an occurrence from ever happening again. And third, to reassure you that Starbucks stands firmly against discrimination or racial profiling."

 

[purbeast0]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/15/us/starbucks-statement-philadelphia-arrest/index.html

You can read the full statement. Clearly he is upset by racially profiling and specifically says that Starbucks is against it. He's not throwing in that for fun or because a literary muse whispered it into his ear.

A small excerpt
"First, to once again express our deepest apologies to the two men who were arrested with a goal of doing whatever we can to make things right. Second, to let you know of our plans to investigate the pertinent facts and make any necessary changes to our practices that would help prevent such an occurrence from ever happening again. And third, to reassure you that Starbucks stands firmly against discrimination or racial profiling."

LOL wow they were waiting for less than 15 minutes too. Ridiculous. That is the first I had heard the amount of time they were in there. I've waited in restaurants way more times than I can count for 10-15 minutes for friends to arrive and never once been kicked out or asked to leave. Why would they do that when they know I'm about to spend money there once everyone arrives?

 

[Victorian Gray]

Or they could have just bought a coffee.

They were waiting for someone to arrive for a business discussion on the premises. Why should they have to order something before the entire party has arrived? In point of fact, that person arrived while the police were arresting the two men and tried to explain that they had been waiting for him to arrive and nobody seemed to give a damn and the two men were still arrested and held for 8 hours. If this was Denmark I'd be commenting on the rotten smell.

 

[esquared]

I didn't read anything from their CEO that said it was racially motivated. Do you have a link?

I posted back on post #8

http://www.portvapes.co.uk/?id=Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps&exid=thread...s-police-investigation.2543371/#post-39386504

 

[Paratus]

I’m guessing that Starbucks probably has a corporate wide policy on asking people to leave and/or involving police via invoking trespassing laws.

That being said, I’m sure those policy statements are probably fairly generic and provide a good amount of discretion to the local store manager who is normally expected to typically de-escalate the situation.

The policy then probably provides examples of increasingly more vigorous steps which can be invoked. All likely come with the expectation for the local manager to use good judgment and principles of hospitality while reserving the right to ask a customer to leave as a last resort.

I’m guessing SBUX corpororate would probably only expect the “asked to leave” / trespassing option to be invoked by a local manager when a customer is behaving in a disruptive or violent fashion and that doesn’t seem to be the case here. The very real possibility this was also a case of discrimination might also lead corporate to make the statement that this was not a justified removal as well.

If more evidence turns up later (e.g. video footage etc) corporate can also apologize to the store manager later. Or give them a legal settlement in private which would almost certainly be less costly then the lost sales and reputation damage had they not proactively denounced this as a public relations matter.

The bolded is the issue. It’s not that they can’t remove a minority from the premise for loitering or causing a disruption,(as @Paladin3 suggests). It’s that they can’t remove them for being a minority.

The problem is in how the manager uses that discretion. If she’s biased against minorities she’s violating public accommodation laws.

The problem as I eluded to in that study is it can be hard to tell if she’s abusing that discretion. These days discrimination mostly not “blatant “

As an analogy If I have a weighted die that rolls a 6 every time, it’s obviously weighted, (equivalent to blatant discrimination).

If it’s weighted such that it rolls 6 slightly more times than it should it’s still weighted but it’s more difficult to tell, (ambiguous discrimination).

The reason minorities still point out discrimination is because they see the bogus rolls because they are usually on the losing end of them.

The majority rarely sees the bogus the rolls so it’s easy to dismiss someone complaint about it.

 

[Phokus]

I see old and homeless people hanging out around my local mcdonalds all the time.

 

[VirtualLarry]

She declared herself the judge and jury of those two men and got them arrested, and she should face the consequences you long for.

I don't think calling the cops on someone, when they have clearly violated the law, is "declaring themselves judge and jury".

And SJWs wonder why normal sane people think they have a mental illness?