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CEO says guns not welcome at Starbucks

CEO says guns not welcome at Starbucks Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz has an opinion on many hot topics, including gay marriage, but Schulz has avoided taking sides in the national gun debate, until now. Schulz’s non-stance on the issue was praised by pro-gun activists, who staged a Starbucks ‘Guns and Coffee’ appreciation day in August. The activists’ decision to use Starbucks as a political tool thrust the coffeehouse into the national spotlight and the plan seems to have backfired because now Schulz is asking customers to keep their firearms out of U.S.-based Starbucks stores. In an open letter posted on the Starbucks website, Schulz said, “Our company’s longstanding approach to “open carry” has been to follow local laws: we permit it in states where allowed and we prohibit it in states where these laws don’t exist. We have chosen this approach because we believe our store partners should not be put in the uncomfortable position of requiring customers to disarm or leave our stores. We believe that gun policy should be addressed by government and law enforcement–not by Starbucks and our store partners. Recently, however, we’ve seen the “open carry” debate become increasingly uncivil and, in some cases, even threatening. Pro-gun activists have used our stores as a political stage for media events misleadingly called “Starbucks Appreciation Days” that disingenuously portray Starbucks as a champion of “open carry.” To be clear: we do not want these events in our stores. Some anti-gun activists have also played a role in ratcheting up the rhetoric and friction, including soliciting and confronting our customers and partners. More…

News selected by Covalence | Country: USA| Company: Starbucks | Source: Mother Nature Network

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