Starbucks says it will close all its US coffee shops on May 29 to provide racial bias training to nearly 175,000 employees. The training — aimed at preventing discrimination at Starbucks shops — comes in response to swift public outcry over the arrest of two black men at a Starbucks in Philadelphia.
Starbucks will close all 8,000 US coffee shops next month for employee racial bias training
The announcement comes after a growing backlash over the arrests of two black men at a Philadelphia Starbucks.
The two men were waiting for a business associate to arrive at the coffee shop April 12 and asked to use the bathroom. They hadn’t ordered anything, and staff asked them to leave. They refused. A manager reportedly called 911 because Starbucks does “not allow nonpaying people from the public to come in and use the restroom,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross told the Philadelphia Inquirer. The employees said the men were trespassing because they refused to leave.
A video of the arrest went viral on Twitter, showing the two men complying with the six police officers who came to the store. It also showed customers protesting as police removed the men’s chairs to escort them out. “This is ridiculous,” one customer says.
On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Police Department released recordings of the 911 call.
“Hi, I have two gentlemen at my cafe who are refusing to make a purchase and leave,” a woman told a police dispatcher over the phone.
“All right, police will be there as soon as possible,” the dispatcher responded.
The dispatcher talked to officers who responded to the scene, and in one call, a police officer asked for backup to handle “the disturbance.” He didn’t give any details about what the disturbance was about.
The incident has opened up a discussion about race in public spaces, and led to calls to boycott Starbucks as well as protests at the Philadelphia store where the men were arrested.
Starbucks has moved to reduce the fallout from the incident, with CEO Kevin Johnson traveling to Philadelphia to apologize to the men in person. Johnson also met with Philadelphia officials to discuss the incident. The Philadelphia employee who called the police has been fired from the company.
“I’ve spent the last few days in Philadelphia with my leadership team listening to the community, learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it,” Johnson said in a statement Tuesday announcing the bias training.
The training will take place at all company-owned stores and will involve some 175,000 employees.
The training, which will be made available to other companies, will be developed with the assistance of a number of national civil rights groups and experts, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Demos, the Anti-Defamation League, the Equal Justice Initiative, and former US Attorney General Eric Holder. The experts will also help review “the effectiveness of the measures” taken by the company, according to a Tuesday statement.
The May closing isn’t the first time that Starbucks has closed its locations for a training. In 2008, the company closed 7,100 stores for three hours to educate employees in the “art of espresso.”
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