Starbucks has adopted a new policy that requires people to be paying customers to spend time at the coffee chain's cafes and to use its restrooms. The policy reverses the stance Starbucks took in 2018 after two Black men were arrested at a Philadelphia store, because they sat down without purchasing anything.
The change, revealed Monday, is part of a new set of rules intended to create a "welcoming environment" at its stores, Starbucks said.
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"Our Coffeehouse Code of Conduct is something most retailers have and is designed to provide clarity that our spaces – including our cafes, patios and restrooms – are for use by customers and partners," the company said.
The code of conduct also bans disruptive behavior, smoking, vaping and panhandling at Starbucks stores. Anyone who violates the rules will be asked to leave, and Starbucks said it may ask for help from law enforcement, if necessary.
Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson told The Washington Post that the company will have flexibility with its new restroom policy. Managers and staff will be trained on how to handle a range of scenarios at Starbucks stores. People who need to use the bathroom or log in to WiFi before making purchases will not be asked to leave, Anderson said.
In April 2018, the arrests of Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson at a Starbucks in Center City sparked national headlines. The men had gone to the store at 1801 Spruce St. ahead of a meeting with a potential business partner. Nelson asked to use the restroom, but was told he could not because he wasn't a paying customer. After Nelson sat back down with Robinson, the store manager asked whether the men wanted to order anything. They declined, saying they were waiting for someone.
Minutes later, an employee at the store called police to have the two men removed. Officers told Nelson and Robinson to leave if they were not going to buy anything. They refused and were arrested for trespassing.
Video of the arrests sparked protests at the store, with accusations that Nelson and Robinson were racially profiled. Starbucks publicly apologized, but founder Howard Schultz left room for ambiguity surrounding its bathroom policy.
"We're going to have to make sure that – we don't want to become a public bathroom," Shultz said a month after the incident. "But we're going to make the right decision 100 percent of the time and give people the key, because we don't want anyone at Starbucks to feel as if we're not giving access to you to the bathroom because you are less than. We want you to be more than."
Nelson and Robinson appeared on "Good Morning America" a week after the incident to talk about their arrests.
"There was no reasoning. They had nothing," Robinson said of the way Philly police responded to the situation. "They just kept using 'defiant trespassing' as their excuse for putting us behind bars."
Former Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson traveled to Philadelphia to discuss racial profiling with then-Mayor Jim Kenney and former Police Commissioner Richard Ross. The police department revised its internal policies on how to handle reports of defiant trespassing, giving officers more discretion about how to respond to specific cases and reduce arrests.
Nelson and Robinson ultimately reached a settlement with Philadelphia that gave each of them $1 in addition to a pledge for a $200,000 contribution from the city to create a youth entrepreneur program. Starbucks also closed its 8,000 stores for a day to give its employees racial bias training.
After the incident in Philadelphia, Starbucks fired the regional manager who oversaw the store in Center City. The employee, a white woman who had worked for Starbucks for 13 years, filed a lawsuit alleging she had been wrongfully terminated based on her race in response to public outcry over the arrests.
The case was resolved in 2023 when a federal jury in Camden found that the coffee company had violated the manager's civil rights. Starbucks was ordered to pay the former manager more than $28 million in damages.
Over the years, Starbucks has faced complaints from customers and staff about drug use, violence and panhandling at some of its stores. The company shut down 16 coffee shops in 2022 — including its former Center City store at 10th and Chestnut streets — citing employee safety. Starbucks also has seen a growing number of its employees join unions in recent years, including staff at 10 locations in Philadelphia.