© Kris Tripplaar
DC: STARBUCKS CEO SPEAKS AT INVESTMENT CONFERENCE
(77WABC) — Starbucks may not be done closing stores over safety concerns.
“We are beginning to close stores,” because of safety issues, interim CEO Howard Schultz said in a video posted to Twitter last week. “This is just the beginning. There are going to be many more.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported that Starbucks is closing 16 stores over safety concerns. Around that time, Debbie Stroud and Denise Nelson, both senior vice presidents of US operations at the company, outlined the efforts that Starbucks is taking to make stores safer in an open letter.
In the letter, they wrote that workers are “seeing firsthand the challenges facing our communities — personal safety, racism, lack of access to healthcare, a growing mental health crisis, rising drug use, and more,” adding that “with stores in thousands of communities across the country, we know these challenges can, at times, play out within our stores too.”
The effort to make workers feel safer could result in more closings, according to Schultz’s video, which was first reported by Insider.
