CUSTOMERS WEIGH IN ON ANTI-BIAS TRAINING
Coffee-thristy patrons arrived at Starbucks locations Tuesday afternoon to find many of them closed for training to prevent discrimination
Gregory Henry went up to the usually bustling Starbucks on Santa Clara and Third Street in downtown San Jose on Tuesday afternoon to enjoy a cup of mocha with a book, but found the doors locked.
He wasn’t alone. Within 30 minutes after the coffee shop closed as part for a company-wide training program, 20 other people also found the doors closed and a sign apologizing for the inconvenience. That scene was repeated thousands of times at other Starbucks coffee shops.
In an unprecedented move, nearly 8,000 Starbucks locations closed Tuesday for mandatory racial-bias training in response to the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia store last month. The mass closings was expected to cost the chain up to $12 million in lost revenue.
Starbucks executives say the company worked with social advocacy groups on the four-hour training program to prevent discrimination in its stores. The coffee chain introduced the training to help employees become aware of unconscious bias last year, but made it mandatory for nearly 175,000 employees after a white manager called the police on the two black men as they waited for a business meeting.
The training focuses on implicit bias, which can be defined as attitudes — positive or negative — or stereotypes someone has toward a person or group with-
out being conscious of it, according to The Perception Institute, a research consortium consulting with Starbucks.
Chelsea Costello, who visits Starbucks several times a week, said the incident that prompted the training and the closures won’t affect where she gets her coffee fix.
“I’m not really worried about Starbucks,” Costello said. “They’re still great. Nothing has really changed.”
In the future, she added the company should require all new hires to undergo the training rather than “going to the extreme” of closing down stores during business hours.
Prior to the incident in Philadelphia, the Seattlebased chain boasted a inclusive reputation. The company pledged in January 2017 to hire 10,000 refugees over five years. The Ethisphere Institute has also ranked the company as one of the world’s most ethical for the past 12 years.
But some customers had mixed feelings about the training. Ken Amaro visits Starbucks twice a week and said he sometimes leaves businesses downtown — including Starbucks —because other people he encounters make him feel uncomfortable.
“Establishments like this in an environment like this should be allowed to discriminate,” Ken Amaro said. “When you have a customer that’s a known customer that spends money in here and they’re known, it’s all good. When you have a person that walks in here and they haven’t had a shower for five months and they’re not going to spend one penny, you’re gonna discriminate against (them). I want this person here and I want this person out.”
Amaro added that businesses should not be able to discriminate based on race, sexual orientation, or religion. As a Latino man, he said that store has ever commented on the color of his skin.
“I hope this works out for them,” Amaro said, referring to the Starbucks bias training overall. “It couldn’t hurt.”
Some of Starbucks’ competitors appeared to benefit, even before the closures.
Trinity Torres, a shift lead at Inkings Coffee & Tea in downtown Pleasanton, said she noticed it was busier than usual. She noticed new faces she speculated were Starbucks customers.
Before local Starbucks closed, Rafat Haddad, owner of 3 Bees Coffee shop in San Mateo, said he didn’t see his business increase during the morning.
“I have my regulars and Starbucks has theirs, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some new faces when they start closing up this afternoon,” said Haddad, who’s owned the place for 16 years and runs a sister cafe in the local library. “In the past, when a nearby Starbucks would close up temporarily to do repairs or remodeling, we’d see a bit of an increase in business. So we’re ready for it if it happens.”
Not all Starbucks closed for the bias training, however. Most of the 7,000 licensed stores—including ones inside retail and grocery stores such as Target and Safeway—stuck to their regular Tuesday hours. Travelers at the Mineta San Jose International Airport enjoyed their scheduled lattes at its non-company owned and operated stores.
A statement said Starbucks will share the training content “so they may have the option to make it available to their employees at a later date.” Target said the employees who work in the Starbucks inside its stores will participate in company-wide antibias training.