Customers at a San Francisco Starbucks can get that Mango Dragonfruit Lemonade, but they’ll have to get it to go.
The downtown Starbucks location on 18th Street no longer offers customer seating, reportedly because of management concerns over rising incidents involving the local homeless.
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Other San Francisco Starbucks locations have also removed their indoor seating and table options, but the company hasn’t officially released any statement explaining the decision.
Starbucks barista Kyle Trainer, an employee at the Castro location, told SF Gate the coffee giant has cut off seating at its San Francisco outlets due to confrontational issues with local homeless individuals and individuals with mental illnesses.
Opting not to offer table options at the location, Starbucks has decided to “remove the seating, close the bathroom and not deal with it,” Trainer said.
Starbucks is “attempting to remove the issues of homeless and mental illness from stores,” Trainer noted. “Instead of exploring more productive and caring options regarding these issues, they would rather take the easy way out, regardless of how their workers or customers feel.”
At Starbucks, the chain of corporate command allows local store managers to make decisions on how the outlet is run.
The Castro store is reportedly deemed a “high incident” location by company management, but Starbucks officials are mum about any specific incidents that may have triggered the seating removal mandate.
Scenarios like rampant alcohol and/or drug use, sleeping inside the store, or creating “loud noises” inside the location are all banned by Starbucks, per its “Third Place Policy”, which lays out store-wide community standards practices.
In comments to SF Gate, Greg Zajac, a shift supervisor at the unionized store, noted staffers were kept out of the loop, although they’re the ones dealing with the public every day.
“Baristas and supervisors are not made aware of the criteria to classify a store as high incident,” Zajac said. “We had no say in whether or not we were going to keep our seating.”
“We’re fighting to get them back,” he added.
