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Starbucks Enters a Bermuda Triangle

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Two black men went into a Philadelphia Starbucks in April and wanted to use the bathroom without buying a cup of Joe. The manager called the cops after he asked them to leave and the men refused. Starbucks went into damage control. On 29 May, Starbucks will close its 8,000+ U.S. stores to conduct a highly publicized company-wide racial bias training for employees.

Furthermore, reports Daniel Henninger in the WSJ, “in the wake of the Philadelphia arrest video, Starbucks headquarters announced last weekend that anyone could use its restrooms without making a purchase.”

Anyone?

Starbucks’s customers, not yet totally oblivious to the reality of daily life, tweeted instantly that this would turn many of the stores into homeless shelters and drug dens.

By Monday, Starbucks had issued a revision of its revision of the company’s barista-customer interface, reported the WSJ:

Under the procedures for handling disruptive guests, Starbucks said Monday, managers and baristas should first ask a fellow employee to verify that a certain behavior is disruptive and if it is, respectfully request that the customer stop. Other examples of disruptive behavior include talking too loudly, playing loud music and viewing inappropriate content. The company provided employees with examples of when they should call 911, which includes when a customer is using or selling drugs.

“Starbucks had arrived at the inevitable endpoint of its politicized retailing,” observes Mr. Henninger.

On instinct, Starbucks decided it could also be a homeless shelter. But then the social-media monitors vetoed that. What the Starbucks crucible makes clear is . . . you can’t win.

No matter what you do to try to appease the progressive zeitgeist, it will always be wrong.

Progressive liberalism has become a political Bermuda Triangle, threatening to suck into oblivion anything that comes near it.

Since about the time Starbucks was born, progressives have been moralizing and politicizing everything—race, sex, gender, football, coffee. The result is chaos.

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Debbie Young

Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over three decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, driving her Porsche Boxter S through Vermont and Maine, and practicing yoga.