
Starbucks Flushes Bathroom Use For Non-Customers
Several months ago I brought you an article about the East Wenatchee Starbucks store reopening with no restrooms after undergoing a multi-month renovation, and now the quick-service coffee titan has just announced it's sacking a longstanding directive for patrons to "come on in and stay awhile...even if you don't buy anything."
This week, Starbucks made one of its corporate New Year's resolutions publicly known, when it sent a letter to all of its North American stores outlining a new policy, or rather a radical change to a decades old one, that will no longer allow people to use its restrooms or seating areas unless they make a purchase.
The move seems entirely counter in many ways to the message first-year CEO Brian Niccol echoed to employees and patrons alike in his first week on the job last September, when he penned a missive stating he wanted to see the company "return to its roots as a 'community coffeehouse' by encouraging people to hang out in its stores for longer than it takes to pick up a to-go order.
However, this week's action didn't come without some seemingly very good reasons to back it up.

Although the restrooms at Starbucks are widely known for being some of the cleanest among all large restaurant chains, these invariably-sparkling single-occupancy havens for emptying one's bladder, straightening your makeup or even changing one of the kiddos during a long road trip have also become a notorious den for some rather vile and even illicit behaviors, particularly at a few of the company's metropolitan locations.
Injecting or smoking drugs like heroin or crack cocaine, performing acts of fellatio in exchange for money, and even camping out for hours on end with the door locked to escape the elements have all become uses for a Starbucks restroom that are far more commonplace than most of the chain's patrons probably realize.
Nevertheless, the company's sudden revocation of a rule that seemed so welcoming and humanitarian, let alone quite ungreedy - especially for one that charges five bucks for a piece of cake on a stick that's smaller than the one served to Thumbelina at her last birthday party, does feel like more than a bit of a betrayal if you ask me.
Honestly, I get it, but the portion of the new code involving the prohibition of bathroom use is the one I have a harder time with.
I've never felt like going into a Starbucks and sitting down with a Thermos full of apricot brandy and a bag of trail mix while using their power and wi-fi to work on my laptop without at least buying a short black coffee was in very good taste. It's loitering, plain and simple. In fact, it's worse than loitering the way I was raised - it's stealing. Yes, even from a big company like Starbucks (it's also illegal too, if what's in that Thermos really is brandy anyway ;-).
But to place a passcode lock on the bathroom door(s) of your store when so many people have come to rely on them for the most reasonable and mundane of purposes does resonate as somewhat unfair. But it's the new reality we're all living in and this is the new Starbucks that's a part of it.
The company says the new rule will apply to all of its stores in the United States and Canada, and that its employees are being provided with the proper training to enforce it. Although saying 'no' doesn't seem like the hardest thing for every Starbucks employee to do, at least in my experience.
The coffee colossus has also vowed to have its employees call the police to mitigate any issues with trespassers when necessary and even to press charges in instances where it sees fit.
As for me personally, I was a two-a-day-plus Starbucks drinker for over two decades who quit the whole thing about three or four years ago now, so in general this neo-draconian approach to just kickin' it with no place else to go or taking a free pee in the bathroom at any of their stores won't present any problems for me.
I must admit that I will miss being afforded the luxury of using the bathrooms at Starbucks when I'm on the road though. Let's face it, there just aren't enough government-run rest areas along the highways these days and some of the facilities I've encountered recently at places like roadside fast food restaurants and gas stations would make some of the homes from the TV show Hoarders look like the paragon for all things sanitaria.
But since the cheapest thing you can buy at Starbucks is a vanilla bean scone that's the size of a fingernail for $1.25, I think I'll just take my chances with the Sinclair station across the street. It should be okay, provided that dinosaur in their parking lot hasn't been in there before me.
A Look at America's 'Best Restroom'
Gallery Credit: Mateo, 103.5 KISS FM