Did you know Starbucks appreciation days also include guns?! Apparently in some regions gun rights advocates have been appearing at Starbucks establishments locked and loaded on these designated days. Now the coffee retailer has decided that guns are no longer welcome.
And that just makes total and complete sense to us. If there’s one thing that shouldn’t mix, it’s people with guns hopped up on caffeine. But more to the point, how does showing appreciation to a retailer include guns anyway? The average civilian coffee drinker isn’t being asked to secure the premises, nor are they charged with being a self-made Starbucks militia. So it’s mind-boggling the connection made between appreciating the ability to drink coffee to carrying loaded weapons within the same establishment. Are the beans weapons of mass destruction? This is something your everyday barista really shouldn’t have to ponder.
Yet we wonder if this is a take on the Chick-Fil-A appreciation day(s) former Arkansas governor and Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee instituted which brought out anti-gay advocates who wanted their Bible Chicken full of nothing but intolerance and reduced civil rights. How is it that “appreciation days” have become code words for the Conservative mantra? Is it really, eat, drink, be merry, and 2nd amendment? Of course it is. Oh, America.
But to be clear on what’s happening in Starbucks it’s all in the wording. Starbucks hasn’t outright banned the firearms — they’ve just said that they are not welcome. If it sounds like a way to straddle the fence, it is. The statement is meant to appease both gun rights and gun control advocates.
Yet, how often have we heard of establishments saying anything about patrons carrying firearms, or their preference that customers not do so. If more and more begin making these types of remarks a logical conclusion could be drawn from this decision directly to the spate of gun violence we’ve seen of late, even though Starbucks makes no correlation between their stance and the events of Monday’s mass shooting. The Daily Kos opines that this was a decision a long time in the making — but perhaps still resonant because of the recent violence.
But it is an interesting statement to make.
In an interview, CEO Howard Schultz said the decision to ask customers to stop bringing guns into stores came as a result of the growing frequency of “Starbucks Appreciation Days,” in which gun rights advocates turned up at Starbucks cafes with firearms.
Schultz said the events mischaracterized the company’s stance on the issue and the demonstrations “have made our customers uncomfortable.”
The company is so far only indicating that guns are not welcome, but they will not ask you to leave. Even so, we wonder if this could eventually lead to signs in the window that say:
No shirt
No shoes
A gun
No service
Image Source: Wikimedia
