Starbucks, get rid of the annoying homeless people

Oh, no! To some people I'm about to sound like a heartless right-winger, even though I'm a proud progressive. Tough.

This isn't a left vs. right issue. It's an annoying homeless people vs. courteous paying Starbucks customers issue. 

Understand: I'm almost always a happy Starbucks coffee consumer.

Two years ago I blogged about how I'm strangely proud of my Starbucks Gold Card. Today I pay for my coffee via the Starbucks iPhone app, which makes me even prouder (because fewer people use it).

But recently I walked into a Salem (Oregon) Starbucks store and was immediately aware of a large, noisy, rather slobbily dressed guy slouching on a cushioned chair near the entrance. He was talking loudly into a cell phone...

Obama, I can't stand him! He's a Muslim! What a jerk. [blah, blah, blah along that absurd line]

That was annoying in itself, even if the guy had been a customer. But I saw no sign of a Starbucks purchase anywhere near him, though he could have sipped his way through a 12 ounce coffee before I arrived.

What increased my annoyance were his two friends, even more shabbily clothed, standing with their duffel bags outside the men's restroom, waiting to do whatever once they got inside.

These three guys acted like they owned the place, whereas they should have been grateful the Starbucks staff didn't throw them out -- something I increasingly wished would happen as some friends and I tried to have a normal conversation while the homeless crew talked in a decidedly loud fashion just a few feet from our table.

So where are you going to go the rest of the day, dude? was one subject of zero interest to me, yet it unavoidably penetrated into my brain through three sets of obnoxiously loud male vocal cords.

I'm sympathetic to the plight of the homeless, poor, and chronically unemployed. However, these guys struck me as being perfectly capable of working. Could be wrong, but I felt like I came to know them fairly well after being forced to listen to them blather for over half an hour.

I started to get so irritated, I thought about asking them to take their conversation outside.

That didn't seem like a good idea, though, given their aggressive macho style. Getting up and asking the Starbucks manager to do something about them was another option. However, I figured they'd realize who was the complainant, and I didn't want to stimulate another round of shouting. Or worse, shoving.

Over on the entertaining I Hate Starbucks site, there's a page of posts devoted to "Homeless people!" The lead post, from a Starbucks employee, says:

I'm sure if you work in a Starbucks in a city you get lots of fun homeless people. Some of my favorite regulars in our store:

-the guy who sprawls out on the squishy chair, takes off his shoes, props his feet up on the end table, and proceeds to fall asleep, snoring loudly, until one of us have to go upstairs and ask him to leave, after which he checks his watch and says, "Oh! Look at the time! I was just leaving anyway."

-the guy who, without having bought anything, spends 20 minutes in the bathroom doing god knows what and leaving it smelling like absolute death for the next unwitting customer.

-the guy who paces in front of the store before we open every morning and comes in right before we close and asks for a cup of hot water and tells us about how he has to walk all night long. He's actually really cool, he turns on the lights for us upstairs in the morning and waits in line instead of coming straight to the bar.

-there's this blind guy who comes in all the time who positively reeks of henna and has this ridiculous patched pants and crazy long dreadlocks.. he buys a drink and sits upstairs staring into space for awhile. Then this other girl sees that he's inside and she comes up to us and asks for a refill on iced coffee, claiming that she lost her cup. She drinks half of the coffee, then asks us to fill the cup up with ice and whipped cream. She then sits down next to the blind guy and steals half of his coffee. We thought at first they were friends, but he assured us that they were definitely not.

-this guy who used to come in wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase with his long gray hair slicked back like the suave beast he was. He would sit down and start talking to high school and college girls while they were trying to do work and, even after they tried to get away or make him stop, would keep taking to them. After several complaints from other customers who watched him creep on minors, he got banned from the store but claimed he was going to write a letter of complaint to our manager because he was "wrongly accused."

There are more, but these are the most colorful of the ones I've seen. I live in a pretty tame little city though so I'm sure these aren't very bad comparatively. Do you guys have crazy homeless people stories?

Well, my story isn't about a crazy homeless person. The guy who irritated me was annoying rather than obviously crazy. I'm more sympathetic toward the clearly mentally ill. 

I realize that Starbucks wants to convey an open-minded, compassionate, community-oriented corporate spirit. That's great. But if Starbucks becomes a haven for the homeless, other customers are going to be turned off.

It's one thing for a homeless person to get out of the cold and quietly nurse a hot cup of coffee at a table in the corner for several hours. It's a whole other thing to dominate several chairs in the center of a Starbucks and talk loudly about Obama's Muslimosity and other ridiculous crap while paying customers are trying to enjoy a Sunday get-together at a coffeehouse. 

A positive side of my experience was that I've now discovered I Hate Starbucks. The site is run by someone clever who has a pleasingly cynical sense of humor. Since I moderate comments on my own blogs to keep out spammers and assholes, I enjoyed reading this on the site's home page:

An Answer to the Question... "Hey why did you take down my post?"

About three people, you know who you are, have been putting up heaps of posts on the site that talk about how wonderful Starbucks is, I delete 'em. Why? Because I like to think of people self-righteously typing their little hearts out thinking that they are going to take a stand against some bunch of anti-Starbucks hooligans and with one click of my mouse their work disappears. Boo hoo.

I also liked the rebuttals page, which starts off with:

I have been besieged by these people lately so here they are, for your reading pleasure... hate mail and stupid postings from the Starbucks Posse. My comments are in white.
Name: heather Date: Tuesday May 09th, 2000 01:18 PM  hey, i work at starbucks and i enjoy it and i posted many postthat seem to get taken off. Before,judging on 1 experience why won't you let people stick up for the company too! Take both sides.
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a clue? Post your squishy ideas somewhere else, for example, try to find an ilovestarbucks.com website, or get off your mocha decaf booty and make one.
Name: Starbucks employee  Date: Sunday March 05th, 2000 03:22 AM I happened to stumble upon this site. It saddens me greatly that people are so full of hate. Sure not everbody likes Starbucks coffee, but not everybody likes tomatoes. Are you going to start Bitching about people who sell tomatoes and like tomatoes? Think about it? Aren't you being a little imature? This is the best job that I have ever had. You can't expect everybody to like everything. The way I see it is that you're jelous that one man made it and your still sitting in front of your computer wishing it was you. Sorry but, Get a Life!
Just in case you were curious, this is the most common type of negative correspondence to the site. Who are they? How much time do they waste traveling to sites that they don't agree with trying to lobby for a corporate monster and influence people by saying brilliant things like "get a life" ? These lovely people are true hypocrites. Don't go to a site with different opinions from yours and insult people. Jeez. And once again, the site is ihatestarbucks.com not ihateeverything.com or even ihatetomatoes.com.

Comments

[tucson]

The next time, just move your table a little closer and behave offensively yourself. Start babbling to them incessantly in a way that makes no sense. Start breaking lots of plastic spoons and stir sticks and throw the pieces their way. Rise suddenly and aggressively and then sit down again. You get the drift.

If you feel embarrassed and fear tarnishing your own reputation, explain to folks after the bums leave that it was just a tactic and appologize.

It's time for people to stop putting up with bad behavior. I'm confrontational with assholes because I know I'm going to die. so if I come out on the losing end I just hastened the inevitable a little bit. What's an extra 5-10-20 years in the face of infinity?

Maybe those with kids need to be more prudent. They have dependents.

[Robert Paul Howard]

How does one grasp the difference between people who are assholes and people who just act like assholes? In terms of behavior, I can't discriminate the difference.

Robert Paul Howard

[tucson]

Well, maybe that's because you are one? ;)

[Robert Paul Howard]

No.

But your response/behavior is about what I expected.

Robert Paul Howard

[Joe Woods]

Whatever happened to the "Bums Rush" waitresses used to give the homeless and other lowlifes that weren't welcome in coffee shops? No one should be allowed to just loiter at Starbucks unless buying something or creating a disturbance.

[tucson]

RPH,
Now that the air is cleared here's an answer your to your question as if you really wanted one. Assholes and those who just act like assholes are the same, imo. No refined discriminative faculty is needed because their actions are what they are. We respond according to the accuracy/inaccuracy and relativity of our perceptions, conditioning, natures, needs, capabilities and circumstances even if all that happens to be nothing. Life is lived through us, not by us, again imo, and if you understand what I mean by the difference.

[Robert Paul Howard]

Thanks for your opinion - and your demonstration.

QED.

Robert Paul Howard

[Tanja]

I agree with hinessight. I'm hardworking lady in her thirties, admin day job and food service at night. I sometimes go to McDonalds to drink coffee to be safe during driving. I one time went to a McDonalds restaurant in downtown. There were homeless guys there too. They were staring at me like hawks. Wasn't too long (before I was finished with my food) when one had plopped himself in the chair opposite from me uninvited to say "Hi beautiful". I told him sharply to leave, which be did with a little drama. I won't eat at that McDonalds again. Also, the public library is another place to be careful of aggressive homeless losers looking to latch on.

[Gold Card Member]

I have moved from a wealthy Southern Orange County town called Capistrano Beach to Riverside due to some personal issues.

That's when I was faced full blown with Riverside's homeless problem with homeless people ordering free iced water and loitering in Starbucks corner armchairs and outside tables.

I'm neither prejudiced against homeless people nor have anything about people who are suffering from flu and cold and sniff their watery noses, but tonight at store close to my new Riverside home, a homeless guy came in and sat in a table behind me.

I don't thing this guy knew when was the last time he took a shower, exposed to freezing Riverside nights, exposed to many communicable skin deceases, was behind me sniffing away the entire time that it took me to get the fuXX out of my chair and flee out of the store in order to reach home and have couple of oranges and multivitamin to increase my immune system.

Starbucks Corporation: Please please have balls and do something about this homeless issue, as it has gotten out of control.

Consider law suits if people contract homeless common deceases from going to your stores. Would that be a time that you would do something about this issue?

[Mentious]

Ya, I hate O'bummer too. Million-dollar golf junkets. No qualifications. Can't talk without teleprompters. My kids can't get jobs. Poorest America's ever been. Wrecked our country.

[homeless]

I am one of those homeless people. I am also very well educated and professional. Through circumstances beyond my control, I lost my house and job..and then my life savings. I am now looking for work...where most employers consider me overqualified or will only offer an unlivable wage.

I come into Starbucks every day because it has WiFi so I can job search. Granted, I make a point to dress well and look presentable but that is because I still have clothing from my days of prosperity.

Sometimes I sneek a mug full of milk as that might be the only nourishment I get all day.

I have NO MONEY left. None. Try getting a job when you can't travel, can't afford to make copies, mail things, etc....

Nice to know what you all think of me.

I never thought this would happen to me..and there are some days I think I will die, other days I wish I could...

All I can say, is through the grace of God go I.

[loling@bums]

@homeless

you're the reason we hate homeless and couldn't careless about them, you leech and steal and justify because lifes hard :(, while not make any use of EI, jobs that were offered to you, shelters, donations, goverment programs, doing labour, odd jobs, mills/rigs. wow, what makes people like you think life owes you anything? Your lifes going exactly where it should.

[barbara klepper]

a job in oregon? where

[barbara klepper]

and why are the homeless not permitted to camp under the west salem bridge?

[centered]

@loling@bums :

that is the cruelest, most heartless, ignorant comment i have read. you don't know till you've been there. you obviously can't appreciate anything outside your privileged life. i feel sorry for you.

you are more disgusting than the most stinky, toothless, ugly, disease-ridden homeless guy you can imagine. and your kind of stink doesn't wash off with soap.

[michelle]

My husband and I go to our local Starbucks every day. We see the homeless people hanging out. Does it bother us? No. I think you would have to be a real d bag if sitting next to someone of a lower social class makes you uncomfortable. You have your name put on your drink that makes special its something a company did to make d bags feel special.were all a job loss away. The thing is they would know how to survive. Confronting them is not a good idea like that idiot said. Most have less than nothing to loose

[StarKid]

Sound like a True Oregonian, all of you - you all sound like real Americans!

Consider changing your terminology from "Homeless" to "Crazy" "Derilect" "Mentally ill" - You will be more direct when talking about your predjudices, and you all wont sound so ignorant.
See "Homeless" means "Without a Home" - not to be confused with "Lazy" "Tweeker" "Junkpop" "Theif" "Unemployed" "Careless" "Dirty" "Rude".... those words do Not mean "without a home".
...and when you goofs see a man with gear on his back and smile as you blurt words like "hitchhikin'?" "Travelin'?"
"Wurr ya Headed?"
You can suck my Silent Bird as I swig my $2 black coffee.
I'll pee on your graves,
The Starbucks Hobo.
ps @Homeless, Cowardly Minds are wordy arent they lol, these kids would get raped slam junk and get arrested in 24hrs on the street haha- and As for "Life" - Theirs is a Lot Worse, AND they have Bills to gripe about and pay HAHAHA

[rattygirl]

The Starbucks Store Manager in my city is so hateful to all kinds of people that she is known on the street as "The Coffee Nazi"...speaks volumes.

I am now waiting on a call from the top...confident its happening because I AM their solution...on both sides. Customer/revenue side and hired paid employees/partners side.

I will not tolerate hate, no compassion, judgement, fashion police, time limits, inconsistency, favoritism, belittling yelling, name-calling, rudeness, and assault-with or without battery.

So yea...waiting on that top of the totem pole woman to call me by Thursday. I'm excited!

They have no idea who I am and that I first take proper peaceful action before I move forward on my own. I do have a business called "Poetic Justice"...imagine that. I am a public hired problem solver. I have solutions oozing outta me!

[Rob Anderson]

Dear Hinessight,

Progressivism does not merely denote a set of political beliefs, but an expansive, egalitarian way of looking at the world and the people who populate it, whatever their socio-economic status. If I may so humbly suggest, perhaps you need to reexamine your assumptions a bit.

The homeless men about whom you write sound no better or worse than the regular, homeful customers I - as a homeless customer of Starbucks - have to deal with and endure on a daily basis. For example, the Starbucks I frequent is not far from a junior high school. This means that every day at about 2pm the place fills up with pubescent noise of a sort I have not had to endure since I was, oh, about 14: hysterical laughter about nothing, girls squealing about same, boys self-importantly honking their newly deepened voices, and so on. And that's just the kids. God help me with too many of the adults who often act as if Starbucks is their personal office space. I can't tell you how many times I've had to endure self-entitled Yuppies who insist upon dragging every unoccupied chair in the store to the large table designated for the handicapped so they can conduct a business meeting they should be having in their damned office.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Should I agitate for the removal of such people? Or should I rather chalk it up to "people will be people" and stop wasting precious time and energy ruminating about it? I think the latter is the best course for me and, perhaps, for you as well.

Incidentally, if you would like to learn more about what it is like to have your life stripped away from you until you wind up homeless, you can read my blog: http://astrandedman.blogspot.com/2015/01/introduction.html

[Malaysia Bowman]

What the article author went through was defently a safety and health hazard, and yes, those types of homeless should have been thrown out and barred from ever returning.

However, in NYC, it's a different story. You could be a paying customer, and be either homeless or not, but if you close your eyes, and a barista (baristastaffel?) sees this, you are rousted and immediatly told "YOU CAN'T SLEEP HERE", and they call the po-po if you don't comply with their demands. This is sick. A lot of people are homeless, and they need a couple hours off their feet, so they pay for their drink and they sit. They doze off (this is in a nearly empty Starbucks btw) and then ::BAM!!::YOU CAN'T SLEEP HERE BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH! Most homeless I have seen do this are not smelly, don't carry in mounds of posessions, and are not even real dirty (but you can still tell they are homeless if you look for a minute) but this kind of heartlessness and thoughtlessness I have witnessed against the homeless really gets under my skin. Strangely, not all Starbucks here are like that but many are, asare many, many other establishments, both public and private.

[Nathan Glass]

I'm homeless doing the vanlife traveling in a van, but I work online, usually at Starbucks (best wifi and atmosphere). I am a very respectful PAYING CUSTOMER though and keep area clean, look for corner small table, plug in a multi wall outlet to share with others so I don't "hog the power." I PAY for a coffee,sometimes a sandwich, and never come in without ordering an item. I hate it when homeless act like they're a customer by ordering just a Vente Water....you are not a customer til you PAY for something...you actually cost them money with just a water! But regardless of a homeless person's plight. Please, have some freaking class! Don't get a big table for just you, don't trash the bathroom (why the heck do you do that? Are you THAT bored???) Don't power hog, don't order just water, at least buy a tall hot coffee (cheapest thing, around $2). If you must bathe (I just use "wet ones big ones" works just as good), then dry up floor, pick up after yourself, leave bathroom as if you didn't use it. If you keep up trashing the place you will ruin a good thing and they will eventually keep you out or give a wifi code upon purchase of something other then water...(I wish they would do that now to deter the growing problem). Some already require bathroom pin (thanks to you) and some have even blocked all power outlets (also thanks to you), keep it up and you will lose it for good, and ruin a good thing for those of us with common courtesy and class.

[Nathan Glass]

Adding to my last comment, Here's a thought;

Instead of being bored sitting around for 10 hours at Starbucks... Be bored (less bored too) making money 8 hours a day by working!!!! Duh...