Bans

Starbucks Won’t Ban That Handicap-Parking Vigilante After All

The chain is making amends.
The chain is making amends. Photo: Starbucks

Starbucks has rethought its draconian punishment for the Florida man whose enthusiastic handicap-parking vigilantism got him banned for life. After a conversation with a regional vice-president, Rob Rowen reports that the ban has been lifted, but is that enough?

It sounds like the store’s patrons can expect him back on guard ASAP, because, as he tells friends on Facebook, he plans on “keeping the pressure on” until the chain addresses its policy towards handicapped patrons:

I told him their needs to be change to their store and local regional managers as they did not seem alarmed about protecting their disabled customers, but more alarmed about protecting their illegally parking customers.

Rowen wants “something on a national level” that marks a shift. He’s got a few suggestions: Signs inside cafés telling able-bodied customers to treat the wheelchair symbols outside like lava, and then, “to show that you really care,” he wants Starbucks to hold a free latte day for disabled customers.

[Bay News 9]

Starbucks Won’t Ban That Handicap-Parking Vigilante After All