Starbucks closing 16 stores over crime concerns, reverses open bathroom policy

Starbucks announced Monday that it will be permanently closing stores in several major metropolitan areas where workers reported café disruptions that made them feel unsafe.

The locations shutting down include six stores in the company’s hometown of Seattle, along with six in Los Angeles, two in Portland, Ore., and a single location in both Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., reports the Wall Street Journal.  

“We read every incident report you file—it’s a lot,” wrote U.S. operations leads Debbie Stroud and Denise Nelson in a message to employees.

The pair said they understood that employees could not work well “if we don’t feel safe at work.”

The coffee company also said that it would give store managers more discretion over the location to manage safety concerns, like the decision to close restrooms, limit seating or more leeway on operating hours.

In 2018, Starbucks mandated that bathrooms in all locations were now open to anyone, even if they are not paying customers, following an incident where two black men refused to leave a store after one was denied use of a bathroom. Video of their arrest went viral, sparking uproar and allegations of racism.

A study about 18 months later found that monthly visits to Starbucks dropped 6.8% compared to other coffee shops nearby who did not.

The move to improve employee experience comes amid unionization drives at some U.S. locations.

133 of Starbuck’s roughly 9,000 stores had certified unions as of last month, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

A leader of Starbucks Workers United, a union behind many of the union votes, told the Wall Street Journal that the shuttering stores’ workers should have been more involved in the decision.

Starbucks said it would transfer the location’s employees to others nearby.