By Joseph Pisani and Terry Tang, The Associated Press
Turning away customers looking for an afternoon jolt of caffeine, Starbucks shops across the U.S. closed early on Tuesday to hold training for employees on recognizing hidden prejudices.
It was part of the coffee chain’s effort to deal with the outcry over the arrest of two black men last month for sitting in a Philadelphia Starbucks without buying anything.
After the incident, the company’s leaders apologized, met with the men and scheduled an afternoon of training for 175,000 employees at more than 8,000 U.S. stores.
Locations across the country posted signs in their windows informing customers that the Starbucks team was “reconnecting with our mission and with each other … to make Starbucks even more welcoming.”
Sarah Whelan, 41, was walking down the 16th Street Mall in Denver on Tuesday afternoon and stopped at the Starbucks near Tremont Place to read the sign.
“We’re good at talking about racial bias, but we’re not good at training people in how to actually address that and be aware of it on a daily basis. So we can say ‘Being racist is bad’ and we can all agree on that,” she said. “We’re not very aware of the subcurrents of racism and how that informs our decisions. So I’d say, overall, itap a good thing and should be something more of us talk about in more real terms.”
Other midday coffee seekers expressed doubts about how much a four-hour training session might accomplish.
Starbucks has not said how much the training will cost the company or how much money it expects to lose from closing the stores during what is usually its least busy time of day.
“It’s quite expensive,” chairman Howard Schultz said Tuesday. “We’ve had certain shareholders call and say, ‘How much is this going to cost and how do you justify this?’ My answer to them was simply: We don’t view it as an expense. We view it as an investment in our people and the long-term cultural values of Starbucks.”
Colorado Starbucks employees interviewed by The Denver Post echoed Schultz’s sentiment.
“I think this is a good thing for Starbucks. It’s only the second time they’ve closed all the stores for training. I think this is a good chance to better ourselves,” said Sam Rosales, a supervisor at the Starbucks near Interstate 225 and East Alameda Avenue in Aurora.
Despite Tuesday’s early closure of more than 50 Starbucks in the Denver metro area, other coffee shops did not expect a significant increase in business.
Herb Brodsky, a co-founder and co-owner of Novo Coffee, said, “We don’t really compete with Starbucks, just like a really great burger place doesn’t necessarily compete with McDonald’s.”
Still, Brodsky said he was glad Starbucks was closing Tuesday afternoon, as he believes the company is leading an important initiative. “I am very pleased that Starbucks is having a discussion about racism,” said Brodsky. “I think itap a very, very important discussion, and anytime you can have that discussion, I think itap a great thing.”
At the company’s famous Pike Place Market location in Seattle, commonly referred to as the original Starbucks, the store stopped letting people in at 1 p.m.
Trina Mathis, visiting from Tampa, Fla., was frustrated that she couldn’t get in to take a photo, but she said the shutdown was necessary because what happened in Philadelphia was wrong.
“If they haven’t trained their employees to handle situations like that, they need to shut it down and try to do all they can to make sure their employees don’t make that same mistake again,” said Mathis, who is black.
Developed with help from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and other groups, the training was not mandatory, but Starbucks said it expected almost all of its employees to participate. It said they will be paid for the full four hours.
Training in unconscious, or implicit, bias is used by many corporations, police departments and other organizations. It is typically designed to get people to open up about prejudices and stereotypes — for example, the tendency among some white people to see black people as potential criminals.
Many retailers, including Walmart and Target, say they already offer some racial bias training. Nordstrom has said it plans to enhance its training after apologizing to three black teenagers in Missouri who were falsely accused by employees of shoplifting.
In the Philadelphia incident, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson were asked to leave after one was denied access to the bathroom. They were arrested by police minutes after they sat down to await a business meeting.
The arrest was recorded by cellphone and triggered protests, boycott threats and debate over racial profiling, or what has been dubbed “retail racism.” It proved a major embarrassment for Starbucks, which has long cast itself as a company with a social conscience.
Nelson and Robinson settled with Starbucks for an undisclosed sum and an offer of a free college education. They also reached a deal with the city of Philadelphia for a symbolic $1 each and a promise from officials to establish a $200,000 program for young entrepreneurs.
Starbucks said the arrests never should have occurred. It has since announced that anyone can use its restrooms, even people who are not buying anything.
Denver Post reporters Chaney Skilling and Natalie Weber contributed to this report.
