August 14, 2022
"One man brought in his own box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a carton of milk and some Entenmann’s mini crumb cakes before passing out face down on a table."
"Afterward, he rolled spliffs as nearby, paying customers tried to enjoy their lattes and Frappuccinos.
A mentally disturbed man in a black trench coat talked to himself and screamed obscenities at the communal mirror near the bathrooms for 30 minutes. 'There’s a guy over by the bathrooms making people really uncomfortable,' one customer told an employee behind the counter."
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55 comments:
Sounds like that Starbucks is deliberately putting its customers’ safety at risk. What do their lawyers and their insurance company have to say about their choices?
I thought I had a "yelling" tag and I saw that, yes, I did. I published this post and clicked on it. I have 43 posts with the "yelling" tag. What was that all about? All kinds of different things.
The quickest way this behavior will change is if men in the area act to stop it. I can't blame the men in the area for not acting, but in a well functioning society a group of men in the shop would have escorted the inebriated patron outside.
I can't criticize anyone who has the class to bring Entenmann's crumb cakes into a Starbuck's.
Boojie comforts can't exist in mass society unless people enforce tacit covenants of mutualism, productivity, and personal responsibility.
This is an uncomfortable truth.
I can't help but laugh about the Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Entenmann's. I love both. I can see someone with their mini crumb cake next to someone eating a $10 Starbuck's scone. He could sell the mini's for a profit to other customers.
My guess is that you have a Yellin tag as well.
Any fool could see that the policy would not work long term. The triumph of hope over reality is a temporary phenomenon when your hope is built on accommodating bad behavior.
There's way too much yelling these days. I only yell if told to shut up.
It’s an act of Entenmanns, a force bum-jure.
"The triumph of hope over reality is a (temporary) permanent phenomenon for those on the Left"
Fixed it for you.
NYC Starbucks customers and the homeless deserve each other.
It appears Starbucks is getting the customers it has been advertising for.
Part of the essential social process is a constant exchange of small transient civilities among strangers sharing space. As the forced coarsening goes on, this exchange ends: and the vast majority of us, imposed upon by madmen and petty thieves, first retreat and then inevitably rebel. We no longer show charity or patience; we avoid the shops and streets where these creatures congregate; we fail to object or even notice when they destroy each other or their surroundings. And sometimes, eventually, in the voting booth we harden our hearts and vote against the insanity. And if there is no longer a voting booth? Well.
Get woke, go broke.
The thing about pigs is you just have to let them wallow in their own filth. There's simply no point trying to put lipstick on them.
New York is the worlds most progressive city, now run by the most progressive Mayor it has ever seen (when he's not partying till 5am at the city's latest chic club). It has become everything it aspires to be: pig shit.
I used to walk by that location often, and have even been in it a couple of times. (It only became a Starbucks relatively recently, as it had been a luncheonette or even a different coffee house previously.) I never saw it in that condition, though.
This location is blocks from the Bowery, which, when I first moved to NYC, was still the avenue of drunks (and junkies), as it had been for decades. One could walk up and down a section of the Bowery and walk through bodies of unconscious men scattered randomly all over the sidewalks. There were flophouses along those blocks, as well, where drunks and vagrants with a few bucks in hand could get a stall to sleep in overnight. (CBGB, the home of punk rock, was right in the midst of this section of the Bowery.)
It's all gone now, the whole stretch cleaned up and populated with sleek new apartment buildings and even an art museum. This Starbucks is probably the only place in that storied area where this bit of the "old" Bowery has reappeared.
Starbucks stock has been under-performing this year (like a lot of the market).
Part of the problem is Starbucks big growth aspirations are in China, and there's no growth in China right now.
One of the interesting things is that Starbucks has closed several of its stores in various cities precisely because of the problems quoted in this article. (San Francisco, Portland, Seattle). The woke government is making these places unlivable, I have read. It's been 40 years since I've been to San Francisco, and I've never been to Portland or Seattle.
Not surprised Robert Cook lives in NYC.
People like Cook congregate in NYC or NYC made people like Cook turn into Leftists. Classic chicken-and-egg question.
If Cook moved to Omaha, he’d live in Dundee over by Susie Buffett’s house.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I hope that they and their customers continue to get it good and hard. Those morons chose and voted for this bullshit, they quite rightly deserve to get it, in spades. There is a reason dem run cities are 3rd world shitholes , in the vernacular, and " bad luck " or " lack of tax dollars " aren't it.
We've become, and worked at being a society that makes excuses for those things that break down our civil society, while demonizing those things that were the foundations of the civil society in which all of us live. Most of us choose to live in a civil society. And I find that many or most of those defending the destruction of our civil society are those living very cushy lives thinking it won't affect them, that they are 'helping' those 'marginalized groups'. They've got this image of groups of people being shut out, not by their own actions shutting themselves out.
So it's interesting and funny at times, but also distressing to watch those who vote for civil society's destruction, bit by bit, get surprised by it when it shows up on their doorstep. At their local coffee shop. Outside of their favorite restaurant. Sleeping in the park behind their home. Or, as in a family member in Seattle had to deal with, spread out on the grounds of their kids grade school, shooting up and masturbating.
In the endless pandering to the lowest common denominator, that lowest standard has come to their neighborhoods. And what a delight it is!
On another topic- Robert Cook. I recently saw Patti Smith at our local Botanical Gardens where she's been made a 'resident poet/artist' of sorts. They had a large, beautiful exhibit of her and Robert Mapplethorpe- poetry and photographs among the gardens. Hard to explain, but it was amazing. Mapplethorpe was a seriously good photographer. Anyway- she showed up for a couple of nights to sing. She was, of course, part of CBGBs rep. At the gardens she appeared old, worn out, but man...she could still sing. When she sang it was still Patti Smith. It was such a long trip for her to be singing in this ethereal, peaceful garden, in front of an audience of well-heeled, society people, mixed with old hippies, a long, long way from the Bowery and CBGBs.
But she was great and she's coming back from time to time. At this point in many of our lives, it's a pretty nice place to hear her.
"first retreat and then inevitably rebel"
The only question is the timing of the rebellion. Partly depends on whether hard men are available to lead it. Trump is pretty hard as a person, in being impervious to criticism, but not yet very hard in policy, if the First Step Act is a proud accomplishment.
One dilemma: the left has raised not only the cost of ordinary life, by encouraging dysfunction and insanity, but also the cost of rebellion. So for the moment the nice middle prefers retreat, and in 2020 Althouse could still safely decide to stay on the sideline.
At what point will the disparate impact of dysfunction on the poor become a prog cause and an instance of "systemic racism"?
Inevitable.
Society policed vagrantism for a reason; it gets out of hand. But the woke brigade think they are so damn smart they know a better way. But they're not and they don't.
"One man brought in his own box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a carton of milk and some Entenmann’s mini crumb cakes before passing out face down on a table."
Sounds like a college student. If he was wearing pajamas then he was definitely a student.
The Vault Dweller said...
The quickest way this behavior will change is if men in the area act to stop it. I can't blame the men in the area for not acting, but in a well functioning society a group of men in the shop would have escorted the inebriated patron outside.
Society is shaped by the pressures placed on the individual.
In a high trust civil society, i.e. everywhere not controlled by radical leftists, the patrons who need help are escorted out by the men Vault Dweller mentioned and taken somewhere to get help by the police.
But we all know that they would be prosecuted in New York for any confrontation with mentally unwell drug addicted homeless people.
In a low trust society the mentally unwell are used by the ruling regime to repress as many people as possible and break down trust in society.
This is absolutely intentional. Democrats/Regime types want a low trust society.
I live in NYC. On a subway car I was riding on, another rider took the opportunity to get up and practice his karate moves. People gave him his space. A few women looked apprehensive, but mostly people ignored him and found something of more interest on their phone. It was far from the most threatening incident I've ever seen on the subway, but what was notable was how little attention was paid to a fairly large madman practicing karate moves on a an moderately filled subway car......There's a new maneuver with panhandlers. Sometimes when you're waiting in line at Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, they complain of hunger and request you buy them some food. The request isn't quite a demand, but neither is it polite....
These homeless people are the same thing as the BLM rioters and Climate activists.
They are maleficients propped up and sent out into society to break down Regime opponents and to cow the people into submission.
That Starbucks was across the street from where I lived starting in 1998. It was there then or opened relatively soon thereafter. It’s closer to Union Square (physically and culturally) than it is the Bowery and was, pre COVID, populated mostly by NYU and Cooper Union students. I’ve heard the triangle just south of Cooper Union is a junkie hangout. A new Needle Park? I miss NYC but not the current NYC.
The problem is you have to drink coffee as soon as it’s made.
Make your own at home and join a simultaneous sip with Scott Adams.
Better yet, start a continuous coffee zoom, where someone somewhere is having a cup of coffee right now and you can join them from the friendly confines of your own home.
It’s always morning coffee or coffee break somewhere.
And the coffee break app is born.
I love this.
Go to an independent coffee shop instead.
For 'chain' coffee, I go to Peet's, but they aren't ubiquitous like the mermaid is...
'The quickest way this behavior will change is if men in the area act to stop it. I can't blame the men in the area for not acting, but in a well functioning society a group of men in the shop would have escorted the inebriated patron outside.'
The liability would be huge.
Forget about getting stuck with needles or being stabbed.
As a society we pay people (they're called police) to deal with this stuff.
If Starbucks is into the whole defund thing, then fuck 'em.
Blogger Joe Smith said...
"As a society we pay people (they're called police) to deal with this stuff.
If Starbucks is into the whole defund thing, then fuck 'em."
This.
I’m just happy to see the word spliff — it reads best if you pronounce it “spleef” in your head.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that the Starbucks CEO invited them !
This reminds me of Charles Martin Smith's line in "Starman."
"We invited him !" as the feds are trying to capture the alien and dissect him.
I'm off to buy a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Cinnamon Toast Crunch - Aldi's brandalike version is just as good at a fraction of the price.
The junkies are the ignorant people who still buy coffee from such a place. You know cleanliness is not a priority there.
Coffee makers and coffee is affordable and easy to make. If you want blended milk/sugar drinks with a cover story of coffee, well, they sell that in a bottle now.
Robert Cook, guess you haven’t visited the area around Cooper Union, lately. It is filled with homeless junkies sprawled all over creating a disgusting and dangerous atmosphere for all who live, go to school, etc Including the super elite, woke and very expensive private Grace Church School. Yes, the area is now gentrified but the bums have once again moved in and returned it to the shit hole it was when last you strolled through.
That "homeless vagrant" pictured in the article is expensively dressed and accessorized. Even under Bidenflation, in the USA tramps live well, at least so far. This is good news; may the final crisis be endlessly deferred.
There are several Starbucks/Peets in my local area, all with their different personalities. My favorite one has a friendly midwestern vibe.
My least favorite, is full of weird hipsters, self-satisfied Yuppie SJW's on computers, with a few "street people" thrown in for good measure. No one seems to like anyone else, even the baristas. You can cut the negative energy with a knife.
THere's only a few miles between them. Each is racially mixed and diverse in regards to class and age. My rather elitest wife, doesn't like entering Peets or starbucks. So, i have to order for both of us.
Social progress.
A couple of the starbucks remodeled their bathrooms to put the Sinks in a communal area OUTSIDE the bathrooms. Other changes? Code locks on the bathrooms. No paper towels, just air blower.
You all do realize that this has been going on in Starbucks for at least the last 30 years? It is not "woke"(the pejorative term the right likes to use) It is a Starbucks.
I'm not saying that is good, but it is and has been for as long as i have been going to Starbucks. And, why toy would believe ANYTHING from the Post is a true representation of all sorts of ignorance.
Vicki from Pasadena
Remember when Howard Schulz encouraged his baristas to talk about racism??
Yeah, good times!!
The violent, obscene, or mess-making should be thrown out and kept out. There's a thing called the bum's rush and it's just made for them.
But most of the complaints registered in the article are about simple scroungers and flakes. It's a blessing of a prosperous civilization that such characters may be tolerated. Some of them are worth knowing; all of them contribute to that vibrancy which is too easily scorned.
I would hate to see the latter group receive the severe treatment deserved by the former. But that's what happens when you let things slide. If you don't use the broom a little every day, eventually you have to clean house with a shovel.
The flakes displayed in The Post may not know it, but they're bringing it on themselves. They enjoy the civilized pleasure of a table in Starbuck's -- well sure, who wouldn't? -- but they poison that environment by their flagrant rejection of civilized norms. It's the flagrancy more than the rejection. They offend against art and honor, both. They live by scrounging, or by blissing out; but they won't follow those lifestyles into flophouse or alleyway: they want a bourgeois comfort withal. Then they should blend in; be pleasant, or at least innocuous; it costs nothing; it's a great game, and the best fun.
I hope some of them get the message, before the world comes after them with a big shovel.
1:13pm comment:
This sort of thing may have been "going on in Starbucks for at least the last 30 years" in Pasadena, but in civilized places like (e.g.) small towns in the Shenandoah Valley it hasn't started yet, and I will be very surprised if it ever does start. Not that I've been in the local Starbucks in the last 10 years, or more than once in the 14 years I've lived here, but I'm quite certain I would have heard about it if any such thing were happening here.
It's very sad that they can't get these people help. And it's even more sad that so many of these people don't want help. They've given up on life and are slowly dying.
"Not surprised Robert Cook lives in NYC."
Lived in NYC. After nearly 41 wonderful, stimulating years in NYC, I have moved out...at the preference of my wife, a NYC native, who had become tired of the city.
Me? I can't see getting tired of NYC, and I hadn't in the least, but when the wife speaks, a wise husband pays attention.
"On another topic- Robert Cook. I recently saw Patti Smith at our local Botanical Gardens where she's been made a 'resident poet/artist' of sorts. They had a large, beautiful exhibit of her and Robert Mapplethorpe- poetry and photographs among the gardens. Hard to explain, but it was amazing. Mapplethorpe was a seriously good photographer. Anyway- she showed up for a couple of nights to sing. She was, of course, part of CBGBs rep. At the gardens she appeared old, worn out, but man...she could still sing. When she sang it was still Patti Smith. It was such a long trip for her to be singing in this ethereal, peaceful garden, in front of an audience of well-heeled, society people, mixed with old hippies, a long, long way from the Bowery and CBGBs.
"But she was great and she's coming back from time to time. At this point in many of our lives, it's a pretty nice place to hear her."
I saw the Patti Smith Band play once, in 1978, in Florida. (I didn't move to NYC until a couple of years later.) It was one of the greatest concerts I've ever seen. The opening act was a then-up-and-coming band called Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. (He was a native of Gainesville, where I attended college.) I was not a fan, per se, of Tom Petty, though his music was fine and tuneful. They were also good in concert.
I walked by Patti Smith one day in NYC years later, on a Saturday morning downtown outside City Hall Park, (near where the World Trade Towers were...at that time). She was walking with someone else, and we three--she and her companion and myself--were the only people on that stretch of block at that moment. She looked at me and I looked at her but I didn't say anything and moved right along.
Where are the social workers we were promised?
"These homeless people are the same thing as the BLM rioters and Climate activists.
"They are maleficients propped up and sent out into society to break down Regime opponents and to cow the people into submission."
They're the people Jesus walked among and tended to. They are lost people, poor, reviled, and a good number of them mentally ill. They have not been "sent out" and they have no mission to "break down Regime opponents" and other stupid-ass thing you might think. They're fucked up and pitiable. And some of them are unpleasant or worse, yes, but most are disturbing only in their undeniable wretchedness.
"It’s closer to Union Square (physically and culturally) than it is the Bowery"
No, I wouldn't say it's closer to Union Square than to the Bowery. Probably it is roughly equidistant between them. Third Avenue turns into the Bowery at about 4th street, a couple blocks over and four blocks south of this Starbucks. Union Square Sough, at 14th Street, is 6 blocks north.
If you tolerate bad behavior, you get more bad behavior. Back in the good old days, that kind of thing wasn't tolerated; the junkies would be arrested and the mentally ill would be institutionalized. It might not have been as good for the junkies and the mentally ill, but it was better for society at large. And back in those days, we were more concerned with normal people than those who violated the norms. We should bring those days back.
I worked for Kinko's Copies for several years, including 5 in Manhattan. The combination of our being fairly tolerant of eccentricity and open all night made us a favorite destination for sufferers of mental illness. I reckon FedEx has evicted most of the lunatics since they took over. It would appear they have decamped to Starbucks. May theirs be a happy sojourn.
"They've given up on life and are slowly dying."
Aren't we all, slowly dying?
I don't care how shitty NYC gets, its an amazing place. And Dunkin has better coffee.
They're the people Jesus walked among and tended to. They are lost people, poor, reviled, and a good number of them mentally ill. They have not been "sent out" and they have no mission to "break down Regime opponents"
You don't think the politicians inviting drug addicts and the psychotic have any motive ?
I used to take my medical students every year to the "skid row" part of Los Angeles. We met with the shelter directors and visited the shelters. The Directors told us that the "Homeless" were 60% psychotic and 60 % drug addicts. Half of each group was both. Since the destruction of the cities began, the percent drug addicts has had to soar. I an unaware of any epidemic of psychosis. Why would Mayors and DAs want to flood their cities with drug addicts ? There has to be a reason, just as George Soros has to have a reason for what he is doing. I have trouble understanding it.
"You don't think the politicians inviting drug addicts and the psychotic have any motive?"
You think politicians are inviting drug addicts and psychotics to hang out at Starbucks?
"Why would Mayors and DAs want to flood their cities with drug addicts? There has to be a reason...I have trouble understanding it."
There's no wonder why you have trouble understanding it...the Mayors and DAs don't want to flood their cities with drug addicts. There will be a percentage of any population who are drug addicts, alcoholics, and/or mentally ill. The bigger the population in a concentrated area--such as a big city--the more visible these derelicts will be, despite their being a minority of that population. That you believe there is a plot behind it and a motive to it, that the addicts and psychotics are being summoned somehow by unknown means and persons to gather in scattered areas in big cities for unknown purposes just suggests you are a kook.
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