Starbucks urges US customers to leave guns at home

STARBUCKS customers in the United States are being urged to leave their guns at home in a shift in company policy which comes amid a fractious debate over Americans’ right “to bear arms” in the wake of a series of mass shootings.

Howard Schultz: Denied shift was response to mass shootings. Picture: Getty

Chief executive Howard Schultz said the move was being made in part response to an increase in people taking guns into the firm’s coffee shops, causing some customers and staff distress.

In an open letter, Mr Schultz said: “Our stores exist to give every customer a safe and comfortable respite from the concerns of daily life.”

Previously Starbucks had adhered to local US gun laws, even in states that permit people to openly carry weapons. The coffee-shop chain operates 7,000 outlets across the US.

Gun control campaigners had been critical of its previous stance, particularly since they had convinced other retailers to ban weapons from their outlets.

Mr Schultz stressed that Starbucks’ new policy was not a ban – employees will continue to serve customers bearing guns. The request also does not apply to police officers.

“I don’t want to put our people in a position of having to confront or enforce a policy [when] someone is holding a gun,” he said.

The Seattle-based multinational’s request that customers no longer bring guns into stores and outdoor seating areas is likely to anger the gun lobby, which in August held a national “Starbucks Appreciation Day” to thank the firm for its so-called “open-carry” policy.

Locations for those events included the Starbucks in Newtown, Connecticut – the town where 20 children and six teachers were shot dead in an elementary school in December. Starbucks closed that shop before the event was set to begin.

Mr Schultz said the Starbucks Appreciation Day events “disingenuously portray Starbucks as a champion of ‘open carry.’ To be clear: we do not want these events in our stores,” he said. He added that the policy change was not the result of that event, which prompted the Newtown Action Alliance to call on him to ban guns at all of its US stores. Nor was it a response to the mass shootings this week at the Washington Navy Yard, he said, in which 13 people, including gunman Aaron Alexis, died.

“We’ve seen the ‘open carry’ debate become increasingly uncivil and, in some cases, even threatening,” Mr Schultz wrote, noting that “some anti-gun activists have also played a role in ratcheting up the rhetoric and friction,” at times confronting customers and staff.

“We found ourselves in a position where advocates on both sides were using Starbucks as a staging ground for their own political position,” he said yesterday.

“I’m not worried we’re going to lose customers over this,” he said, noting he and others at Starbucks considered the concerns of customers, employees and investors. “I feel like I’ve made the best decision in the interest of our company.”

Pressure group Moms Demand Action, formed the day after the Newtown shootings, has been organising “Skip Starbucks Saturdays” to urge the firm to ban guns at its outlets. Participants take photos of themselves at rival stores that ban guns and post them online.