The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Starbucks plans shutdown for anti-racial bias training
PHILADELPHIA — Starbucks will close more than 8,000 U.S. stores for an afternoon next month to train employees after two black men were arrested while waiting at one of the coffee chain’s Philadelphia stores last week.
The “racial-bias education” training will occur May 29 and be provided to nearly 175,000 employees, the company said Tuesday.
The announcement follows days of protest and a personal apology by the company’s chief executive, Kevin Johnson, to the men in a private meeting Monday, a company spokeswoman confirmed to The Washington Post. The spokeswoman, Jamie Riley, did not provide any additional details.
Johnson, who rushed from Seattle to Philadelphia over the weekend as the backlash erupted, also met with Philadelphia’s mayor and police commissioner.
The chief executive has publicly apologized for what he called “reprehensible” circumstances that led to the arrest of the two men at a store in Philadelphia’s Center City district Thursday.
“I will fix this,” Johnson said in a video message.
Separately, he told “Good Morning America” Monday that “what happened to those two gentlemen was wrong” and said the company was reviewing the actions of the store manager who had called police.
“My responsibility is to look not only to that individual but look more broadly at the circumstances that set that up just to ensure that
never happens again,” Johnson said Monday.
Starbucks said later that the manager “is no longer at that store.”
The Starbucks at the corner of 18th and Spruce had closed temporarily because of demonstrations inside and outside but reopened Tuesday morning to little commotion: No protesters were outside, and the customers in line had little interest in talking about what had happened there in recent days.
It was business as usual inside the store, with its neat displays of chicken BLT protein boxes and mimosa gourmet gummies.
Just one day earlier, demonstrators convened at the same location. One person in the crowd hoisted a sign that read, “Is she fired or nah?” — a reference to the store manager who called police. Others chanted, “Anti-blackness
anywhere is anti-blackness everywhere.”
The police were criticized for their handling of the situation. On Monday, the department referred to the police commissioner’s Facebook Live video from Saturday. Commissioner Richard Ross said in the video that one or both of the men asked to use the restroom but had not purchased anything. An employee said Starbucks company policy was to refuse the use of the restrooms to non-customers and asked the men to leave, according to Ross. The employee called the police when they refused.
“These officers did absolutely nothing wrong. They followed policy; they did what they were supposed to do. They were professional in all their dealings with these gentlemen,” Ross said in the video. “And instead, they got the opposite back.”