SEATTLE: Starbucks Joins “LGBT Safe Spaces” Program

The Seattle Times reports:

Not one single business has turned away Seattle police Officer Jim Ritter when he’s asked them to join a program aimed at offering help and a safe haven to lesbian, gay and transgender victims of hate crimes. Starbucks announced Wednesday that it, too, is partnering with the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) Safe Place program, even though the coffee giant has been working since June to implement the program and train 2,000 employees across 97 locations within the city limits. Starbucks decided to announce its involvement since the final employee-training sessions will be wrapping up early next week, said Heather Jennings, Starbucks’ regional director for the Seattle metro area. She said decals with the program’s emblem — a police badge colored to look like a rainbow flag — were affixed to the windows at the Third Avenue and Pike Street store when she made a visit earlier in the day Wednesday.

Via press release from Starbucks:

Designed to identify plentiful safe and secure places for victims of anti-LGBTQ-related crimes and harassment, SPD Safe Place’s mission is intentionally uncomplicated. Window clings with the program’s rainbow logo are circulated to Seattle area businesses and public facilities identifying them as places where staff who’ve received SPD Safe Place training will call 911 and allow victims to remain on the premises until police arrive. “We’re not wanting employees to tackle the suspect who is doing this,” he emphasized. “We want to make sure the employees stay safe and people in the businesses stay safe. I think the way this was designed, that’s certainly happening. Remember, these suspects don’t want to be seen. They don’t want to be following victims into a room full of people who can identify them.”

Starbucks’ participation in the program is already drawing denouncements on right wing sites.