NEW ORLEANS — Starbucks announced Friday that it would be closing its Canal Street store permanently on October 3 over safety and security concerns for its employees.
Sam Jefferies, a Starbucks spokesperson, called the coffee shop on the corner of Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue "a high incident store."
"Our stores are windows into America, and every day, our partners witness the challenges facing our communities – challenges to personal safety and security, racism, a growing mental health crisis, and issues magnified by COVID. These challenges play out within our stores – affecting our partners, our communities, and our customers alike," Jefferies said.
The company sent out a letter in July on safety issues.
Jefferies told our partners at NOLA.com that they had incident logs in place, but Starbucks did not want to share the data of threats the staff faced.