@HImom I saw that the other day. It’s. It getting as much okay as the Sbux story and it’s just as bad. The nice thing is LA Fitness immediately fired those employees.
Interesting that these recent incidents didn’t happen in the South, which is always considered so racist…
But wow, 3 employees were all united in booting out the paid member and guest! That’s very odd to me. I’m sad to see these incidents that keep popping up.
Personally, if I was asked to purchase or leave at a place, I’d purchase or wait just outside the restaurant or coffee shop, in view of the entrance. That’s not that difficult to do and prices aren’t all that unreasonable. I’ve never been forced to order before whatever friend I was meeting when I meet a friend or more at a dining place.
Having police called seems way over the top and I’m sure officers hate it.
Apparently, it is a commonly-unenforced rule that seating is for paying customers only. Since non-enforcement appears to be the usual case at many stores, it obviously arouses suspicions when the rule is selectively enforced, especially when the most obvious reason that someone is selected for enforcement is not something that they are doing any different from others whom the rule is not being enforced on.
If you are meeting someone, most folks don’t order until the person gets there. Why is everyone saying they should’ve ordered? I just had a business meeting a few weeks back at a Starbucks. The person I was meeting was late so I sat down and waiting. I didn’t want to order until he arrived.
Philadelphia is a high-segregation area (#4 on the list at the bottom of https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-most-diverse-cities-are-often-the-most-segregated/ ). Los Angeles somewhat less so, but still on the more segregated side of the list.
Philadelphia is in one of the red zones where frequency of web searches for an insulting term for black people is high, according to https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-04/uom-gsf042715.php . Los Angeles stands out as an area where the frequency of such searches is above average, in a region where it is generally below average or low.
I think we need to let all the facts of this incident come out. Things I am hearing:
- Location has past problems with loitering
- The manager may not actually be a racist, but part of the social justice movement.
- According to the two individuals, the manager asked if she could get them anything. They declined. It doesn’t appear that they said “as soon as our buddy gets here” or something to that affect.
- It’s not clear if these are the only two similarly affected or not. Would be interesting to see.
Nah we don’t have to wait. We know she called not just the police but 911, on two guys who were doing nothing. We also know the only reason we know about this is because a white patron filmed and posted. We also know other white patrons told the cops they were doing anything.
So again, what facts are we waiting on?
Did the manager ask them to leave ever or did she just call the police on them?
Did she ever say “If you don’t leave I’m going to call the police.”?
@yourmomma -Let me turn this around. Did she ever ask if they were waiting for someone?
Yeah, facts like the conversation between the men and the manager was TWO MINUTES!!! It took her two minutes or less to make a snap judgment that the men were a problem. Hmmm.
Somehow this same manager had no issues with white people sitting at her/his Starbucks without ordering anything.
@katliamom exactly!!! Hmm quite curious that many are just skipping over that fact.
I’m very familiar with Philadelphia and racism since I grew up there. However, general rudeness and poor customer service is more of a trait in the service industry, so I’m a little slower than some to attribute complete racism to this situation, although from what we are hearing, there could be that element.
^This incident goes much much much more beyond “poor customer service”…
No, I think the fact that she has apparently let white people hang around without ordering something indicates she is the main problem. I think it’s okay to wait a little while. But at some point you can’t keep waiting without buying something. I don’t know what that time should be - I don’t run a coffee shop. It might vary depending on the time of day.
It’s their business model. (For white patrons, anyway.) Haven’t you noticed that several people in this thread have said that they have gone to Starbucks and hung around for a while not buying anything? I have, too. Starbucks may not have to provide free seating, but they do provide free seating.
It’s not illegal for a business to routinely ask people to leave if they aren’t buying anything. It IS illegal for a business to ask black people to leave if they’re not buying anything, but allow white people to stay while not buying anything.
@partyof5 – and those guys weren’t even using the free wi-fi. Clearly they were UP TO NO GOOD in those 2 minutes it took to call the cops. (Insert massive eyeroll.)
The law prohibits a restaurant from “refusing service” based on a discriminatory reason. Is not letting someone sit in your establishment and not buy something “refusing service?” I’m not sure.
I tap out, this thread is like the others, where we hear, “let’s wait, there must be something more, etc. Theres video, and other patrons with no skin in the game, vouching for these men, yet some still make excuses for the manager and/or place blame on the gentlemen.
So I went to see if I could find something online about the Philly manager not being racist, etc, just to see where that angle is coming from. Funny thing, what I found instead was an incident at a LA Starbucks where a black customer had been denied the bathroom code (he wanted to use the bathroom before ordering) but found a white customer had been given the code before ordering.
Which goes to show, in my mind anyway, that it’s a very good thing that Starbucks has the current plan in place to close all stores for a day of training.
No link because I think the video was part of a blog and originally from twitter. I don’t think posting those are allowed here. It should turn up on searches.