The majority of us go to Starbucks to buy coffee. Many people have a go-to beverage, and if you frequently frequent a Starbucks, you may know the baristas by name and they may already know what you want before you even say it.
Unfortunately, it appears that some Starbucks stores are experiencing so many safety issues that an unexpected choice has been made by the coffee company. 16 Starbucks stores, including those in Los Angeles, Portland, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., will permanently close.
In a letter to Starbucks’ partners, Debbie Stroud and Denise Nelson, senior vice presidents of U.S. operations, explained that some of their employees are “seeing firsthand the challenges facing our communities – personal safety, racism, lack of access to healthcare, a growing mental health crisis, rising drug use, and more. With stores in thousands of communities across the country, we know these challenges can, at times, play out within our stores too. We read every incident report you file – it’s a lot.” They added, “we cannot serve as partners if we don’t first feel safe at work.”
The letter explains that they will do things like offer safety training and mental health support in order to ensure their partners feel secure. The safety precautions also include “changing operations, closing a restroom, or even permanently closing a store.”
More information concerning these stores’ closures, as well as the reasons why other retail businesses have thought about doing the same, is provided in the video below.
A spokesperson for Starbucks told CNN Business, “After careful consideration, we are closing some stores in locations that have experienced a high volume of challenging incidents that make it unsafe to continue to operate.”
Employees will be transferred to nearby Starbucks locations that will remain open from the locations that will close.
Has it ever made you feel uneasy to be in Starbucks? Do you find it surprising that Starbucks will shut down locations for safety reasons?