Many restaurant chains and retailers do not allow firearms on their properties.
“Someone can bring a gun in the store, and it’s scary, it’s really really scary,” says Starbucks customer Michael McDuff.
Starbucks’ Policy had been to default to local gun laws until now.
“We do believe that guns should not be part of the Starbucks experience,” says CEO, Howard Schultz.
Starbucks customer Juan Salles says “if they don’t want to allow guns in the store, then they should be, it’s their right.”
The company was roped into the gun debate last month when a group of gun-rights advocates held a national Starbucks appreciation day in August to thank the company for its stance on guns.
Schultz says “we are respectfully requesting that those customers who are carrying a gun, just honor the request and not bring the gun into Starbucks.”
Customers of Starbucks here in Medford say it comes down to one thing.
Salles says “what is safety is when respect other peoples opinion, other peoples rights, and if the store has a right lets respect that, and lets respect the right with people that have their guns. Its respect, mutual respect.”
Respecting the request will be up to the customers.
“Those customers who will bring in the gun, we hope they won’t, we’re still going to serve them, we’re not going to ask them to leave,” says Schultz.
Schultz says this is simply about the Starbucks coffee company and it’s customers.
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