This Sacramento Starbucks is still not open for in-store dining. Here’s why

Sixteen months since Sacramento County lifted COVID-19 restrictions and allowed indoor seating at restaurants to resume, the 15th and Broadway Starbucks in Land Park is still take-out only. Even the outdoor seating has been removed.

Bathrooms have also been closed.

“This is a high incident store,” explained several store baristas to a customer inquiring about using restroom facilities.

The employees would not go into detail about incidents. The Starbucks sits in a small shopping center, just a one-block from a large homeless encampment that has also become a place where neighborhood advocates say illegal drugs are bought and sold.

This location stands out as more than 100 Starbucks stores in Sacramento have reopened their doors to dine-in customers.

Starbucks Senior Manager of Brand Reputation and Crisis Communications Sam Jefferies spokesman said local managers are empowered to do what is necessary to ensure the smooth operation of individual stores.

“If there are incidents related to mental health crises or homelessness or other issues like that, certainly one of the steps the manager is able to take is to change the store layout, the closing of the lobby.” he said.

Jefferies said he could not offer information on specific incidents that have occurred at the store but said the mental health and homeless crisis occurring across the nation, including in Sacramento, and in Starbucks home city of Seattle, were challenging communities.

He said the company is “refocusing on the safety” of customers, employees and partners. He noted an announcement last week that Starbucks will close sixteen stores at the end of July.

The shut locations will include six locations in California, all in the in Los Angeles area, because of unspecified safety concerns.

“We’ve had to make the difficult decision to close some locations that have a particularly high volume of challenging incidents that make it unsafe for us to operate,’ a spokesperson said.

Asked if the 15th Street and Broadway location could also close, Jeffereis replied, “We don’t have anything to announce at this time regarding that.”

Safety concerns challenge Land Park businesses

A Jamba Juice location next door to the Starbuck at 15th and Broadway shut permanently on Monday. It’s unclear why the location closed. A spokesman for Jamba Juice’s parent company, Focus Brands, offered no specifics

Drugstore chain Walgreens, a third merchant in the small shopping center that houses Starbucks and the closed Jamba Juice, had also closed its bathrooms to the public.

Walgreen’s manager Mario Cervino said they reopened this week. He said the bathroom closure was only temporary while the facilities were renovated after being destroyed by a homeless individual. He said members of the homeless community had destroyed the bathrooms several times in recent months, but offered no specifics.

Sacramento Police crime maps show vicinity around Starbucks, Jamba Juice and Walgreens is the largest center of crime in the Land Park neighborhood. Thirty-six incidents are listed between Oct. 20, 2020 and June 27, 2022 in the establishments, the shopping center and on Broadway.

The incidents include robbery, aggravated assault, shoplifting, battery, and vandalism.

Another cluster of 23 incidents occurred near the stores on 15 Street, between Broadway and X Street between July 31, 2020 and May 19, 2022.

Sacramento Police refused to offer specifics on the incidents.

Sacramento Police spokesman, Chad Lewis, said authorities have responded to multiple incidents at the Starbucks, Jamba Juice, and Walgreens.

The Land Park Community Association said crime has been a persistent issue on the Broadway commercial strip.

“Neighbors have complained about the lack of safety, criminal behavior and illegal drug use around that area for several years now,” said Kristina Rogers, Vice President of the Association.

“If Starbucks is finally recognizing they cannot manage unsafe and illegal behavior around their property, we are not surprised,” she said. “As much as our neighborhood wants to support our local businesses, many have stopped shopping there due to personal safety concerns. Businesses along Broadway may continue to lose business until people feel safe to visit.”

Rogers said that X and W streets on the other side of route 50, where the homeless encampments have stood for months on end under the freeway, are basically an open-air drug market.

On Thursday morning, state transportation agency Caltrans, escorted by the California Highway Patrol, evicted dozens of homeless from under the highway.

Sacramento Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela said she had asked Caltrans for months to work with the city to get the homeless out of a dangerous situation.

“I do think it’s an urgent safety issue beyond impact for the neighborhood and businesses,” she said. in an interview.“A homeless encampment next to a freeway entrance is not safe.”

A Caltrans spokesman in an email that the agency issued a 72-hour notice to the homeless on July 15 and then waited until July 21 to clear the encampment. He said the agency regularly assesses encampments for “immediate threats to safety or essential infrastructure.”

He did not explain why the encampment wasn’t closed earlier.

Valenzuela said the city has created a safer space for the homeless in tents in a city-sponsored homeless village in Miller Park in East Sacramento.

But by Thursday night, many of the homeless were back, showing their are no easy answers to Sacramento’s homeless crisis. The homeless had set up dozens of tents on 14th Street between Broadway and X Street and along X Street, but across the street from their former location under the freeway.

One homeless woman on Thursday night said there was no offer of housing in Miller Park and that Caltrans had removed their tents for no reason from under the freeway.

Impact of incidents on customers

One concern in Land Park is that crime along Broadway is not just limited to Starbucks and Walgreens, but is affecting other businesses and the people who patronize them.

Architect Jeff Stowell of Stowell-Silva Architects sits on the board of the Greater Broadway Partnership. He is Treasurer of the public-private improvement district for the Broadway commercial district.

He said crime has gotten out of control in the past year. So much so, that Stowell said that he was the victim of an attack by a homeless person recently as he left a Vietnamese restaurant called Viet Ha on Broadway.

“A woman was walking by, started yelling at me and came up to me, took my sunglasses off of my face, and threw them to the ground, threw things at my car, and then came back and pushed me on the shoulder, “ he said.

Stowell said the owner of the restaurant interceded and the woman walked away. He said he was not seriously injured.

Around a year ago, Stowell said a man with a knife walked into his office on Broadway and threatened his administrative assistant for no reason, before leaving. He said the administrative assistant was not injured but remains shaken by the incident.

Stowell said he hopes Starbucks is able to stay in business but city and federal rules often handicap the police from moving the homeless off private property. He said there are no easy answers in sight.

One of the coffee shop’s occasional customers, a homeless man named Andrew, also wants to keep Starbucks open.

He said the Starbucks baristas are very nice and have even gotten a chair out of the storage closet for him.

“As long as you are spending money, they let you stay,” he said.

This story was originally published July 22, 2022 at 11:51 AM.