Here’s the Starbucks gun request the company made today. The company, which has some 10,000 stores and 160,000 employees in the U.S., is asking customers who carry handguns in open-carry states to please not bring their guns into the store. It’s hard to believe this will be taken as controversial or as anything other than reasonable, fair and sane, but we are an interesting country.
I spoke to Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz this afternoon, by phone.
Why did you do this? Why does Starbucks have to have a position on people bringing guns in for coffee?
“We are not a policy maker and we’re not on any level anti-gun. But over the past four months there’s been episodes in and around our stores that alarmed us. Advocates on both sides [of the gun debate] began to stage events in and around Starbucks stores that mischaracterized Starbucks’ brand and position. That was not in the interests of our company, our shareholders and employees. So open-carry comes, and we abide by the law. But it began to disturb us, the number of customers and children who became alarmed at seeing people in the store carrying guns. . . . We had a couple situations the past few weeks where some people walked in with rifles! [Some local Starbucks stores] became a staging area for the argument over Second Amendment rights. We’re not pro-gun or anti-gun, and we decided to respectfully ask gun owners to leave their guns out of Starbucks.”
Why did Starbucks become a theater of the gun debate?
“Our stores are a meeting place, coffee’s been part of conversation for hundreds of years” he said. This fact “became a natural opportunity for people to use us as a staging ground.”
How do you imagine this working—how do people who carry guns in open-carry states disarm themselves to get a cup of coffee?
“This decision was made through the lens of our values. . . . It’s not a ban. We’ll serve customers and not ask them to leave. . . . I personally have spent endless hours on this issue. I’ve spoken to passionate advocates on both sides.” He notes that two members of the Starbucks board are former Defense Secretary Bob Gates and former Sen. Bill Bradley. The board voted in support of the request. “We viewed this through the lens of bipartisanship.”
In the old Westerns, sometimes the saloonkeeper told the cowboys and ranchers to hang up their guns on a rack before coming inside and drinking. Did that sort of thing pass through your mind?
Interjection on speakerphone from Schultz’s public relations aide: “Howard’s from Brooklyn.”
Your letter seemed particularly polite and eager to strike a fair minded tone. Did it go through a million drafts?
“No. What I tried to do was go through a lens of fairness.”
Everyone probably asks you if you have guns. Do you have guns?
“I’m not gonna answer it because I don’t think it’s about me.”