Starbucks has announced that it is going to become a public restroom.

Starbucks tells employees in a letter that everyone is “considered a customer” https://t.co/NnSwMLYct0

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 19, 2018

Yep, you read that right.

On Saturday, the company told its employees in a letter that “any person who enters our spaces, including patios, cafes and restrooms, regardless of whether they make a purchase, is considered a customer.”

I’m not sure how long Starbucks will survive if management doesn’t understand basic things, like the definition of customer.

According to Merriam-Webster a customer is:

1: one that purchases a commodity or service.

Besides bathrooms, table space, Wi-Fi, and air condition or heat, what else will Starbucks give away to non-paying customers?

If you go across the border into Canada, you would find a chain of coffee and donut stores called Tim Hortons.

Tim Hortons didn’t get the message from Starbucks that restrooms are for anybody who walks in off the street and not just paying customers.

A Tim Hortons employee denied a restroom to a non-customer.

Woe be unto that employee.  The woman proceeded to relieve herself onto the floor and then throw her physical manifestation of a progressive opinion at the employee.

Roll the security footage (you have been warned):

At least she had the forethought to get a handful of napkins first for cleanup.

In a civil society, you’d think that we could come to a consensus on the ideas that a business should cater to those who patron it and pay its bills, and that is is wrong to throw your shit at someone.

You’d be wrong.

First from Vice.

We Finally Know Why the Angry Tim Hortons Pooper Pooped
For the love of God, just let people use your bathroom.

The clip shows the woman screaming at Tim Hortons workers before furiously untying the sleeves of a sweater around her waist, unbuckling her pants, leaning up against the back of a booth and, well, pooping on the floor. She then grabbed some napkins, picked up her log and whipped it at the employee behind the counter. Not yet done, she grabbed more napkins to wipe her ass, and, like her turd, whipped them at the employees as well.

Social media has been abuzz with this obviously weird incident, leaving everyone with one simple question: Why?

Well, we finally have an answer. Turns out that the Timmies employees wouldn’t let her use the bathroom and she really, really had to go (which probably explains why she was able to poop so quickly). Tim Hortons’ restroom policy is that anyone can use it—you don’t have to be a customer—but that, in some franchises, employees have to give you a key or buzz you into the bathroom at their discretion.

On Thursday, Tim Hortons responded to the video which has been seen and lampooned widely in Canada and beyond. In a statement, the fast-food chain said that they didn’t let the woman use the bathroom because of “past behavior and out of concern for the immediate safety of team members and guests in the restaurant.”

“We are deeply concerned by this video as the safety of our team members and guests is always a top priority for us,” reads the statement. “In limited cases across the country, restaurants have a restricted access policy for restrooms to ensure the well-being of guests.”

It seems that the discretion of this employee was well warranted.  Anybody who will throw shit at you is not someone you want using your bathroom.

Still, the opinion of Vice is “let anyone who wants to use your bathroom.”

Next we have The [Toronto] Star.

We should have empathy — at least a little — for the Tim Hortons poop-flinger

Nope.  No we shouldn’t.

It’s one of those things that generally goes without saying: there’s never a situation where it’s appropriate to drop your pants in public, take a dump on the floor, and then pick your feces up and throw it at other people.

I agree, but this is in direct contradiction to the tile of the piece.

I’m no contrarian on this. Do not poop on the floor. No matter where you poop, don’t fling it at people. Please.

But you are about to justify it.

Yet, reading a report that the events leading up to the video footage began when, according to Newsweek, the woman was told she could not use the public washroom, a further emotion does occur. Not sympathy, exactly, and certainly not justification. But a tiny bit of empathy for the underlying frustration that might have led this particular person into an inexcusable meltdown.

Who among us has not faced a washroom emergency and been told by someone that we cannot use the perfectly good one a few feet away? “This washroom for customers only.” It’s a sign — or a statement made by staff to your pleading, desperate face — that indicates an ice-cold indifference towards fellow human beings.

So when a business tries to keep its bathrooms clean for paying customers it’s okay to throw shit at some minimum wage donut guy?

No business open to the public, and hoping to do business with the public, should have a policy like that. It forces indignity upon paying customers, insults and alienates potential customers, and displays zero empathy with those desperate souls in danger of soiling themselves who cannot become customers because they don’t have any money on them.

This is the most social justice paragraph I have ever read.  It is literally “Bathrooms/tables/etc. are for paying customers only that keeps a business from turning into a homeless shelter.”

There are plenty of public restrooms.  People don’t like to go in them because they are gross.  People prefer bathrooms in businesses because they are kept cleaner.  They are kept cleaner by employees of the business who are paid by the business from customer money.

Look at one Starbucks in New York by the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Wall, a community affairs officer with the Midtown South Precinct — whose job is advising businesses on crime reduction — said he and colleagues repeatedly told managers at the branch at Eighth Avenue and West 39th Street to stop giving away food.

They said it was attracting emotionally disturbed individuals who urinated on cafe seats, got high in a second-floor seating area and assaulted patrons.

In fact, cops were called to that Starbucks for such disturbances 80 times in 2017, the suit alleges.

So the Starbucks gave free food to the homeless who moved and pissed on the seats.

Then it got worse.

But the coffeehouse, not far from the Port Authority Bus Terminal, ignored the warning and that same cop wound up being assaulted by a vagrant — who was angry over the quality of his free croissant, the officer charges in a lawsuit.

“I warned that someone would end up getting hurt — it was an unsafe environment. It turned out to be me,” Sgt. Timothy Wall told The Post.

So one homeless man got angry that his free pastry, that would cost you or I $2.45, was not up to his liking and started a ruckus.  The police were called and a cop was beaten.

This is just dangerous.

Forget taking my family into a place where there might be shit everywhere.  I am defiantly not taking my family into a place where they might be attacked by a deranged vagrant.

The anti-business mentality of the left, including its own management, can’t seem to fathom this.

I will spell it out for them.  If I’m going to buy a $5 mocha, I am not going to do it in a place where I can’t sit down because a vagrant has pissed on the seats and can’t wash my hands because there a vagrant is sponge bathing himself with the napkins in the restroom sink (I’ve seen that).

I’ll go somewhere else or just make myself a Nespresso at home.

Starbucks is nailing the lid down on its coffin.

I just want to know what Tim Hortons will do when it say “We see you Starbucks, not hold my terrible lite beer.”