Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has gone from a 2nd amendment hero to a zero faster than you can say “triple shot espresso.”
A couple of years ago, he earned a lot of fans by telling folks that the 11,000 Starbucks would welcome concealed carry permit holders who follow the law. Some gun aficionados decided to show their appreciation by creating Starbucks Appreciation Days and carrying their guns openly in the coffee shops, where it’s legal. Anti gun forces pitched a fit.
But, now, Schultz has put out an open letter saying that Starbucks doesn’t want any customers in its stores carrying a gun…open carry or concealed.
[…]
Starbucks says seeing a pistol upsets its anti-gun customers.[…]
[…] what’s really comical for a top CEO like Schultz is seeing him insist that he’s not banning gun loving Americans…just telling them they’re not welcome in his stores if they’re exercising their constitutional rights.
Here’s the text of Schultz’s open letter:
[…]
Dear Fellow Americans,Few topics in America generate a more polarized and emotional debate than guns. In recent months, Starbucks stores and our partners (employees) who work in our stores have been thrust unwillingly into the middle of this debate. That’s why I am writing today with a respectful request that customers no longer bring firearms into our stores or outdoor seating areas.
From the beginning, our vision at Starbucks has been to create a “third place” between home and work where people can come together to enjoy the peace and pleasure of coffee and community. Our values have always centered on building community rather than dividing people, and our stores exist to give every customer a safe and comfortable respite from the concerns of daily life.
We appreciate that there is a highly sensitive balance of rights and responsibilities surrounding America’s gun laws, and we recognize the deep passion for and against the “open carry” laws adopted by many states. (In the United States, “open carry” is the term used for openly carrying a firearm in public.) For years we have listened carefully to input from our customers, partners, community leaders and voices on both sides of this complicated, highly charged issue.
Our company’s longstanding approach to “open carry” has been to follow local laws: we permit it in states where allowed and we prohibit it in states where these laws don’t exist. We have chosen this approach because we believe our store partners should not be put in the uncomfortable position of requiring customers to disarm or leave our stores. We believe that gun policy should be addressed by government and law enforcement-not by Starbucks and our store partners.
Recently, however, we’ve seen the “open carry” debate become increasingly uncivil and, in some cases, even threatening. Pro-gun activists have used our stores as a political stage for media events misleadingly called “Starbucks Appreciation Days” that disingenuously portray Starbucks as a champion of “open carry.” To be clear: we do not want these events in our stores. Some anti-gun activists have also played a role in ratcheting up the rhetoric and friction, including soliciting and confronting our customers and partners.
For these reasons, today we are respectfully requesting that customers no longer bring firearms into our stores or outdoor seating areas-even in states where “open carry” is permitted-unless they are authorized law enforcement personnel.
I would like to clarify two points. First, this is a request and not an outright ban. Why? Because we want to give responsible gun owners the chance to respect our request-and also because enforcing a ban would potentially require our partners to confront armed customers, and that is not a role I am comfortable asking Starbucks partners to take on. Second, we know we cannot satisfy everyone. For those who oppose “open carry,” we believe the legislative and policy-making process is the proper arena for this debate, not our stores. For those who champion “open carry,” please respect that Starbucks stores are places where everyone should feel relaxed and comfortable. The presence of a weapon in our stores is unsettling and upsetting for many of our customers.
I am proud of our country and our heritage of civil discourse and debate. It is in this spirit that we make today’s request. Whatever your view, I encourage you to be responsible and respectful of each other as citizens and neighbors.
Sincerely,
Howard Schultz
I hope for his sake — and for the sake of his “anti-gun customers” who are so offended at the sight of others’ weapons that they will protest what is a Constitutionally-protected right — that no nutjob decides to take Joe Biden up on his advice, buy her/himself a shotgun, and go Grande Caramel Macchiato hunting in all these newly-declared gun free zones.
The irony would be too tragic to stomach.
Didn’t we just have a long talk about how hurt feelings and zoning laws must be respected?
I have never bought a Starbucks coffee, never saw a reason to do so when carrying guns in one was okay, and see no reason to do so now.
Well, okay — causing hoplophobes’ pulses to race out of control might have been a reason, but I can do that with my NRA Life Member cap. Or my NRA Life Member coffee mug.
Schultz is on Neil Cavuto’s show. I remain unconvinced about his motives and how he is going to enforce this gun-free zone in states that have open carry laws.
It’s a good thing I have never bought a coffee there. I’d have to give them a piece of my mind.
Greetings:
But I can still bring my dope, right ???
The concealed carry law in MN allows private businesses to not allow concealed carry in their establishments. I imagine there are similar restrictions for open carry.
Note how private businesses are only truly private when they are allowed to restrict the natural right to self-defense.
You can only restrict the -rights of the non-special people, the +”rights” of the special ones are to be preserved unto the death … of any company.
I can fix that. Watch this:
[clears throat]
[begins humming rythmically like some kind of Buddhist monk]
place of PUBlic acCOMMOdaTION
There you go, problem solved.
It’s all in the way you invoke the law-father, you know.
That’ll three hens and duck.
He wants to be left out of the debate and he’s not going to enforce anything.
What McGehee said. I can’t recall ever being inside a Starbucks kiosk, but I did buy a big sack of Starbucks coffee at Sam’s once. Overpriced and unimpressive, just as I’d guess I’d find in the kiosks, but without the kiosk’s attendant yuppies hanging about, if that’s what one terms self-absorbed hippies with faraway eyes nowadays.
place of PUBlic acCOMMOdaTION
Can I order a groom’s cake with an AR-15 on it?
I’m waiting for tracy to pop up and insist that this is all discrimination against teh gheys
First, this is a request and not an outright ban. Why? Because we want to give responsible gun owners the chance to respect our request
With the unspoken “if you choose to exercise your Constitutional rights, you aren’t responsible enough to drink our coffee”
I’ll be happy to take my business elsewhere. Sir.
Make sure you say “GOOD DAY!” as you slam the door, Red.
Starbucks Howie wrote:
What a Goddamn pussy.
Look, either you, the business owner, want to allow firearms in your establishments or you don’t. Make a decision.
Then, we can make a decision whether to patronize you or not.
This guy is a first-class weasel and, sadly, so typical of many of our businessmen today.
I’m going to boycott Starbucks and tell everyone I know that their cancer has been linked to bowel cancer. Or bowl cancer. Whatever. Because activist thuggery is A-OK and when stores won’t accommodate their customers they deserve whatever happens to them. Because America.
I’m going to eat pork chili and wander in starbucks and cropdust the fuck out of the line and tables. Then I’m going to watch loud porn on my laptop. Because justice.
Violent video games made me do it.
I might be willing to go to Starbucks just to watch somebody rob the place because nobody in there has a gun.
Easy.
Go to a Starbucks. Ask for everyone’s attention and ask if anyone there is authorized for concealed carry or is openly carrying. If the answer results in “nobody”, scream at the top of your voice “Holy shit, you’re all a bunch of unarmed targets here! I don’t want to be shot!” and leave.
Rinse and repeat.
Good day, dammit! Sir.
And I’m off to Dunkin’ Donuts. I don’t know what their policy is, but, like I said, if you carry concealed, who’s gonna know?
Starbucks treated me like shit and made me feel like a nut or an outsider! They practically made me feel like they were accusing me of the Newtown massacre! Their coffee taste like hate and blood and bullshit now. Their lemon squares taste like Diane Feinstein’s leather jackboot in my mouth.
This is what I get for voting for John McCain!
This just simplifies things for me. I despise coffee (except for “mud coffee” or “cowboy coffee” primitive methods for brewing), so now I don’t have to feel badly about not supporting them or their weird African coffee.
I liked their vanilla coffee frappachino. It was like a thin ‘chocolate milk milk-shake’ with a kick. A very soft kick. More like footsie really. And there was vanilla syrup involved. And they made a crushed ice smoothie with it and out whipped cream on top.
It’s not the sort of coffee that Roberft E. Howard would have written about though. I was never really a reaver or a slayer’s drink.
Not suitable for high adventure.
I had some kind of weak, chocolate water, crushed ice, thing there once. It was all I ever tried (and only at my wife’s urging). If Slush Puppie made a Yoo-Hoo flavor, it would probably taste a lot like that.
if they ended their partnership with the devoutly anti-american and ardently socialist new york times maybe Howard would sound like less of a cunt
Yeah Mondamay it is kind of Ovaltine-esque.
Mondamay: Why do you hate Yoo-Hoo, h8er!
Palaeo: Why do you hate Ovaltine [please], h8ey h8er!
We need to keep our military bases gun-free zones. Then, by definition you won’t have shootings there. Because if a nut job sneaks a gun in and shoots a lot of defenseless soldiers, then that means you didn’t keep the base a gun-free zone. So, we know that for sure this policy will work just by its very definition.
Note to self: need to keep the police gun free like they do in England. What’s all this then and let’s be having you is all they need over there. Plus, I like how you’re not allowed to shoot a home invader over there. It just seems so cruel.
Bob Belvedere says September 19, 2013 at 8:41 am
Mondamay: Why do you hate Yoo-Hoo, h8er!
Only hate it if I paid Starbucks prices for it.
Jim, I’m pretty sure that the coppers in England carry weapons, now. The days of whistles and yelling are long past.
Not all of them leigh.
That’s why those two nigerian bastards had to loiter around for forty-five minutes after they murdered that British soldier before they could be (almost)* martyred.
.
They had to find a bobby armed with more than a stick in her hand first.
*I don’t remember if those guys expired after getting shot or not.
I don’t remember if they did either. Maybe I watch too many Brit crime shows. The detectives always have pistols.
OT: Homeless dude in Boston finds backpack stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash and travelers checks. He hands it over to the BPD and receives . . . a plaque from the city! Presumably to hang in his cardboard box over the steam grate this winter.
Homeless dude did a little better than that because the internet.
That’s good news, Pablo. I wonder if he has any old tax liens?
Patchouli oil makes me uncomfortable, how about that?
Splash on a little Hoppes then.
aye, the ol’ number 9 is indeed a beauty of a smell