(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) Starbucks is closing stores in certain neighborhoods throughout the United States in order to deal with rising crime, as deep blue states and urban cities struggle with the repercussions from leftist policies.
“The closures are all due to higher rates of crime in the neighborhoods where the stores have been open for years,” KIRO-7 reported.
The coffee company, based in Seattle, is also rethinking the layout of its stores and will likely restrict bathroom use to customers.
Founder and interim CEO, Howard Schulz, the latest woke oligarch to have been “mugged by reality,” appears to have given up on his 2015 plans to “create a more empathetic and inclusive society” by demanding that his baristas bore customers with their deep thoughts on race.
In a recent message to Starbucks employees, Schulz warned that “we’re seeing unprecedented cultural division and economic trauma [in the United States],” and presented a plan to “modernize and transform the Starbucks experience in our stores and recreate an environment that is relevant, welcoming and safe.”
“In a world that is increasingly isolating and often divided, we can operate in a way that knits together the fabric of our neighborhoods,” Schulz wrote.
Starbucks VPs Denise Neilsen and Debbie Stroud were more explicit in a memo to employees shared with the Seattle Times, which suggested that in Joe Biden’s America retail stores have become underclass battlegrounds.
According to Neilsen and Stroud, the company is concerned about “personal safety, racism, lack of access to health care, a growing mental health crisis, rising drug use and more.”
Under CEO Kevin Johnson, who retired in March, Starbucks had gone all-in on the Left’s post-George Floyd plan to destabilize America.
George Floyd should be alive today. We still have work to do to address systemic racism and ensure everyone has an equal chance to succeed and thrive.
Black lives matter, and we stand with our Black customers and partners. https://t.co/41WsOp2QIW pic.twitter.com/7EDDxlRIsU
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) April 21, 2021
“We will continue to advance our work by focusing on greater inclusion, diversity and equity as partners, investing in the communities we serve, and partnering with community organizations to help ensure Starbucks remains a welcoming place for all,” Johnson wrote to employees in April 2020.
But times have changed.
“Consumer demands have changed,” another VP told the Times. “We recognize the external environment has changed, so we’re responding to that with urgency.”
