Starbuttocks refuses to allow use of bathroom to pregnant woman

www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/10/02/starbucks-denies-pregnant-woman-use-bathroom/?intcmp=sem_outloud

That doesn't even make sense. It seems like that would be against health codes as health codes require restaurants to have bathrooms. The idea is if you have dirty hands you need access to the bathrooms to wash your hands before you eat. Lots of working people go to these fast food places, use the toilet, wash their hands, and then go up and order food. Is Starbucks saying you have to order first with dirty hands, then you can wash your hands and eat? I'm not understanding the code thing either. Do they change the code on a regular basis, like every day? If not you could have some people cheating by remembering the code and going to the bathroom without even buying anything, God forbid. Obviously this idiot worker was way out of line but the policy itself seems extremely stupid in the first place. It seems like that would drive away a lot of customers.

In nyc, it's very common policy to require a purchase to use the bathroom. A lot of places even have signs that say bathroom use for customers only.

There is no health code requiring businesses to allow random people to walk in and use their bathrooms..they are not public bathrooms. Some places don't even have bathrooms for public/customer use at all (they're not required to if they have less than 20 seats - also very common in ny).

Not that I agree with the Starbucks employee in this case, sometimes you need to use common sense, and a lot of places don't make a big deal out of it....but I'm just saying at least in ny, this is pretty standard practice. It really does suck when you're walking around and suddenly urgency hits...you walk into a place to hopefully use the bathroom without running into an issue like this (sucks for the pregnant lady, for me I probably wouldn't even have the time to ask for the code).

Post Edited (UCHater) : 10/6/2014 9:30:34 AM (GMT-6)

I can see that if it's in an area near a college campus, or a similar area that has a lot of foot traffic (like close to the bar scene in town), they'd want to have a code on the door. Lots of people would wander in off the street and just use the restroom w/o buying anything. If it is close to lots of bars, I can see that the bathroom would get really nasty on a Friday or Saturday night.

That said, it would have been wise for the employee to give the woman the code, given that she (hopefully politely) asked for it. And it sounds like it's definitely not Starbuck's policy - none that I've been in have ever had a code on the door. I do, however, think it's nuts that the woman is boycotting Starbucks. The manager of the store reached out to apologize, after all.