If that was the policy, I could agree, but the corporate representative has said publicly that in that region it's their written policy that non customers can't use the rest room or loiter inside, and they set up the manager, unintentionally, to fail with their policies. It's horrific to me that, for following written policy, the manager is now fired.

Crazy that you, of all people, are arguing the manager in a privately owned business doesn't have the right to eject even customers, much less non customers. How can that work? Any place open to the public is now publicly owned? No business may prosecute anyone for trespassing? Even non customers? Or is it just franchise coffee shops? I've seen many a white punk asked to leave Denny's at 2am for no purchase, or for nursing their coffee for hours....I've been one.

The cops have said they asked the men at least 7 times to leave peacefully over a prolonged, disruptive time period, and they continuously refused. During that time, backup and a supervisor were called and had time to show up while the men remained seated, ignoring the police requests/commands.

How hard would it have been to just buy their own coffee instead of causing all this over obstinate refusal to respect the manager's requests because they're waiting for someone? How often would you expect that excuse, if accepted, to end with hours of free WiFi and restroom use but no sales? Seems to me they caused all this themselves, and had dozens of easy opportunities to avoid even being asked to leave, much less arrest, just by being a customer in the store they set up shop in.

Edit: and I shouldn't have said it had nothing to do with race, there's likely a racial component....it's not only or definitively about race.

All that said...please go ahead and boycott Starbucks, if not for this then because they're out of control and a near monopoly.

Unsurprisingly, today I saw a new paper warning sign taped to the door of a local restaurant saying in part that only customers may loiter on the premises all others will be prosecuted for trespassing, restrooms require prior purchase before use, and you will be asked to leave 30 minutes after you finish your purchases.

Thanks guys.

Ok, it seems they did use the restroom and were noticed and approached, not that they asked to use it and were denied, I misunderstood the tv report. From their online report....

"The employees told police the men came into the store, sat down and then used the bathroom, according to Ross.
"Starbucks said that according to their company policy, they do not allow non-paying...people of the public to come in and use the restroom," Ross said. "So they then asked these two males to leave. These two males refused to leave and the police were called."

"We would love to meet those two men and personally apologize," Camille Hymes, the Starbucks regional manager, told NBC10. "We take full responsibility."
We take full responsibility and....we put [the manager] in a position that did not allow her to be set up for success or those two men," Hymes said
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Protesters-Gather-Outside-Philadelphia-Starbucks-After-Two-Black-Men-Were-Arrested-There-479809353.html

So it seems this is corporate policy, or at least a regional policy, that may just not be enforced in most places, at least that's how I read that.
Full disclosure, I don't think I've ever been to a Starbucks.

Edit: now I've seen an interview with a customer who said you do have to ask for the restroom code at this location, so the original report is looking more correct.

I guess even the "ask to use the restroom" is confusing to me, since all the Starbucks I have been in, the things are at the back of the store and you just walk in. Sometimes that is my first stop before I order a coffee. They are usually pretty busy, so I have problems how any staff member could know whether or not I ordered something now, or an hour ago. This is where it starts getting weird for me.

You have to admit the optics on this one is pretty bad for that store. I don't for a second believe that this is anything else that something that happened at that particular store and not Starbucks policy.

NBC nightly news.

I've never had an issue like this either, but I also have never gone to a busy business, set up shop, tried to use the amenities, refused to make a purchase, and obstinately refused to leave. I have been forced to make my purchase before being allowed access to the rest room, doing the gotta pee dance the whole time. You can't ignore that I'm white....but it had nothing to do with that interaction.

Why buy something if you think your friend is buying? Because you sat down and they asked you to. I've not heard anyone claim that was the case, however, nor that they made that clear to the manager.

Could be they're friendlier at your local Starbucks, since I assume it's not run by Americans. ;-)

I think the 'grief' started when they asked for restroom access but refused to make a purchase. Many locations are strict on that rule to avoid becoming a public restroom that serves coffee. Then they refused to leave or make a purchase, and were likely nasty after being denied restroom access, but even if not they were undeniably defiant of the manager, who has every right to ask non customers to leave.
It might have a race component, but just as easily might not. Jumping to the conclusion that just because they're black it must be racial discrimination is bullshit imo, and leads to insanity like people outraged at racist faucets and soap opera tv court cases.

Ha. I saw Spidey use a public restroom in Hollyweird on 12/15/2017.

looks like me when i'm trying to find a restroom while holding in a massive shit.

Wow. You know what, I sometimes write really long posts on the internets but I rarely hit enter. Because it's mostly really difficult to explain some things in writing to one's satisfaction. So while I still don't understand the whole transgender thing, I do acknowledge it really must be difficult to take a pee in a Men's Restroom with a dress on.

So yeah, im a half in, half out of the closet trans person living a genderfluid reality. Complicated existence, and unlesz you're in the demographic or a serious ally, you just don't understand what it's like. This isn't a new revelation, I have known this about myself as long as i have had self awareness.

I grew up during the Reagan era, so no one gave a shit that I thought I was a girl.

Literally just shit on and reshaped and fear thunderstruck, raped, molested as a form of homosexual comversion -- you got this shit?

I just didn't understand what people meant when they were trying to explain the differencez between male and female because i was CERTAIN i was a girl when I was 3 years old. And yes i have those memories. In fact, the age of 4 through 7 are the most vivid and awful memories of my reality an you may stare theough me and rwfuse to understand if you want, but like the song says "We exist." (By Arcade Fire; Cool song even if the musician isnt trans.)

Anyway. We are just shit on. I'm used to it. A friend of mine used to call me a white nigger and honestly, as racial insensitive as that is (a black guy telling me this) that is the feeling. Police brutality and all. Whatever. You dont want to understand so just dont bother. I got sick to death of explaining this so long ago it doent matter to me. How fu king sad is that? How fu ling sad is my goddamn perspective? How can I even be happy in this world? Its shit.

Logic: If you are so afraid we are a bunch of rapists, what about gay people who aren't transgender -- where do they take a pee where people won't fear them molesting people of the same sex? I mean, is there going to be a "Gays Only" and "Transgender Only" bathroom?? It doesn't make sense even if you fear us.

And in my humble and humiliated existence, gay people have wanted nothing to do with me and have even tried to convert and change my opinions of myself. Even in the middle of FUCKING LA PRIDE. Assholez like that CUNT Milo. He can go DIE.

It doesn't make sense. Have you ever peed in a Men's Restroom with a dress on? Totally awkward.

I know I'm using colloquialisms and non-PC language, but I'm just really depressed about this -- as if I wasn't already depressed about everything all the time lol

Republicans. Fuck you. I have no other means of relating my disappointment in the entirity of all reality -- the very fabric of this universe is hate.

Unfortunately HP's answer to #3 is pretty weak.
"3. Transgender people are not “disproportionately involved” in sex crimes

At least not in the way Yiannopoulos claims. In fact, in the past 35 years, only one case of an alleged trans person attacking someone in a restroom has been reported anywhere in the entire world. "

So, the takeaway from this is that in 35 years there's been one recorded attack in a bathroom, but nothing on any other kind of sex crime. So I find this answer to be kind of dodgy.

That being said of course Milo's own statement is actually pretty vague when you think about it, by merely saying that trans people were "involved" in a disproportionate number of sex crimes, this says nothing about whether they were involved as perpetrators or victims. Milo knows that most of the people he's trolling of course will assume he means that they perpetrate crimes, say what you will, he knows his trolling.

Also, I did a brief search but couldn't find any actual statistics, which I was really hoping would be in the Huffpo article.

Good luck getting to a restroom in time.

It sure beats the alternative, which is sharing a windowless IT tech room with someone who doesn't bathe every day but instead throws on another layer of some dime-store spray, powder or gel. So it's like working in a Greyhound bus restroom with the industrial-strength masking agent covering the organic human stink.

Ha, that is why avoiding eat and drink at public places like E3 (2014) if I can. At least they don't charge for using the restrooms.

He has already established himself like few can do. I know this clip was edited for humor but to me the concept that is the Academy Awards is so shallow and arbitrary and fleeting that I can't imagine him feeling slighted. At his level it would be like feeling bad because he lost that coupon for a free car wash. But I'm not him.

Then again I did take a leak once in the restroom at the Shrine Auditorium and sensed some real Hollywood magic flowing through the plumbing, maybe there is something to it.

As a person who cleaned restrooms while I was in college, I can say that women's rooms are just as bad as men's. You just haven't lived until you've tried to unclog a toilet that got clogged by a sanitary napkin some idiot tried to flush with their poo.

Additionally, at least in college restrooms, the likelihood of puke was much higher on the female side.