Starbucks (SBUX) is running into a familiar problem that has dogged the coffee shop operator for years.
It's one that strikes at the heart of its efforts to be hospitable to customers, while at the same time keeping its stores safe and clean for employees.
But the issue is a touchy one for the company because it's botched it before.
If you live in a big city, you'll know the struggles of finding a clean and available bathroom while out on the town.
While Federal rules require that bathrooms are available for employees and that they comply with ADA standards, rules requiring making bathrooms available to the public vary from state to state.
Places like Starbucks have been offering relief for generations of people who pop in to use the bathroom and may, while they're there, also pick up a coffee drink.
Starbucks Bathrooms Have a Tumultuous History
But Starbucks, in particular, has had a long and often tumultuous history with its bathroom policy.
In 2011, the Seattle-based coffee giant closed bathrooms at some of its New York locations to the public after finding that employees were spending a significant part of their shift waiting to use facilities tied up by both customers and people who just stopped by the stores to use them.
"Starbucks cannot be the public bathroom in the city anymore," an anonymous source with inside knowledge of the closures told the New York Post at the time.
In 2018, Starbucks ran into a nationwide outcry that came when a store manager in Philadelphia called the police on two black men who were waiting for a friend and tried to use the bathroom without a purchase.
The men's arrest prompted weeks of protests and a number of changes on the part of Starbucks: the company held several anti-racism training sessions for its employees and changed its policy to explicitly say that "any customer is welcome to use Starbucks spaces, including our restrooms, cafes and patios, regardless of whether they make a purchase."
At the time the company's then executive chairman, Howard Schultz said "we don't want to become a public bathroom, but we're going to make the right decision 100% of the time and give people the key because we don't want anyone at Starbucks to feel as if we are not giving access to you to the bathroom because you are less than."
Why Is Starbucks Doing This (Again)?
But those "we're a family" and "all are welcome" times may be coming to an end again.
At the New York Times DealBook policy conference in Washington, D.C., Schultz, who has returned as chief executive, said that staff in certain urban areas were having trouble managing the inflow of people coming in to use their bathrooms.
"We have to harden our stores and provide safety for our people," Schultz said at the conference, according to the Times. "I don't know if we can keep our bathrooms open."
The staff, Schultz said, were. ill-equipped with people who could become violent or disruptive. He cited the ongoing mental health crisis as the reason for the problem. World Health Organization data found that, since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, global prevalence of anxiety and depression rose by as much as 25%.
Research from Boston College and the University of Texas at Dallas found that visits to Starbucks fell by 6.8% in the year after Starbucks instituted its open bathroom policy. The declines were much higher in locations that were near a homeless shelter, according to the report.
