A frequent visitor vents about problematic management policies
The start of fall semester means a campus swarming with students who haven’t yet decided it’s time to skip classes. It’s busy enough to make you sick. My answer to start-of-semester bouts of crowd sickness? Packing my backpack and heading to downtown Regina.
Downtown Regina is home to countless cafes and lunch spots. Most of these are pricey and cater to crowds donning business-casual garb, toting briefcases that probably cost something close to a semester’s tuition. The neighborhood, spanning from Albert to Broad Street, encompassing everything north of Victoria Avenue to just north of Dewdney, is home to The Green Spot, Bone & Broth, Good Earth, a seasonal weekly farmers market, and so much more.
Downtown Regina is also home to a Starbucks, open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday and reduced hours on weekends. Located at 2020 11th Ave, this Starbucks became Regina’s first standalone iteration of the popular coffee chain in late-September 2017. According to the Leader Post, the store is owned by the operator of Proven Foods, Scott Love.
On paper, the 11th Avenue Starbucks is a prime studying spot. The drinks are quite good, and unlike other cafes in the area that close early, at Starbucks you get your money’s worth of time.
The crowd is interesting and varied, and if you use the location as a ‘coffice’ long enough, you’ll begin to recognize your fellow regulars and their orders. As Joe Fox wrote to Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail, “people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee, but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.”
The reality of the 11th Avenue Starbucks is far from this on-paper, idealized version. Sure, those office workers toting briefcases are still attempting to pay for an “absolutely defining sense of self,” and sure, you can sit inside on cushy leather chairs for up to twelve hours, but you’re going to be confronted with reality at some point or another.
The 11th Avenue Starbucks has all the usual makings of a bad spot to get a coffee from: I’ve been handed still-frozen sandwiches, my sister was once given a spoon to ‘drink’ a frappuccino with, and as of mid-September, they had a disgusting number of flies everywhere inside.
It gets worse. On Sept 4, I noticed a fridge half-heartedly shoved in front of the already-locked washrooms inside the cafe. Mildly annoyed at having made a 30-minute walk to a cafe that couldn’t even put in the effort to fake ‘maintenance’ with some degree of plausibility, I ordered a drink anyways, and sat down to work.
A few hours in, in the clueless voice I reserve for acting like I believe a lie with my entire heart and soul, I ask the barista when he thinks the ‘maintenance’ will be finished.
He looks at me, shocked, and for some reason, he told me the truth: “the washrooms aren’t actually under maintenance.”
He went on to tell me that staff are lying because houseless people have been buying coffee, and then using the washrooms. I don’t know who made the decision to push a fridge in front of the doors, but this kid told me, in a few short sentences, exactly why the decision was made.
In the mind of whoever decided to shove a fridge in front of those doors, houseless people don’t deserve even a scrap of dignity, not even when they pay for it.
Saskatchewan’s Public Eating Establishment Standards states that “public washrooms shall be provided,” and that, “public washrooms must be conveniently located so that access does not require passage through areas where food is stored and prepared.”
Starbucks violated both conditions.
Starbucks is known by dog owners, for their (often) completely free “pup cups,” so they have no problem giving animals a cup of whipped cream, but all the problem in the world letting paying customers use their restrooms.
Why was my yorkie deserving of more respect than a human being? Living in harmony with our more-than-human relatives is important, yes, but treating each other with respect, dignity, and care, should take precedent.
The failings of this city to provide access to affordable housing, supports for people to recover from addiction, the human dignity everybody deserves are made glaringly obvious by Proven Foods’ 11th Avenue Starbucks.
Starbucks has since moved the fridge, and reopened washrooms, but for some reason, I doubt they did so willingly.
