Some local Starbucks cafes will not close today for racial bias training

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

Not all local Starbucks locations will close today for racial bias training.

Target Corp.’s Starbucks cafes will remain open when the coffee chain closes its U.S. stores on this afternoon for racial-bias training. More than 8,000 Starbucks Coffee stores will close for a company-wide training session on racial bias following an April incident at a Philadelphia location.

» TRENDING: Starbucks stores to close today for racial bias training

Multiple Target locations in the region have Starbucks cafes, including stores on Feedwire Road, Miamisburg Centerville Road and North Fairfield Road. Starbucks cafes located within Kroger stores will also remain open today, a spokeswoman told this news organization.

“In 2018 we are undertaking our own refreshed training on Our Purpose and Our Promise at Kroger. As a result, we feel comfortable that the most important core values and expectations of how we treat our customers, each other and our communities at large will be reinforced and brought to life in a powerful way through our Kroger culture to support Restock Kroger and beyond,” a spokeswoman said.

Starbucks cafes in Target stores are managed by Target and its associates, who participate in the company’s existing bias training programs. Target announced that the majority of headquarter employees have already completed immersive bias trainings, and stores and distribution employees will now take part as well.

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The training is the coffee chain’s response to an April 12 incident during which two men had asked to use the restroom at a Philadelphia Starbucks. An employee refused because they had not purchased anything. The two men then sat down in the store and an employee asked them to leave but they declined, the Associated Press reports.

The store manager, Holly Hylton, 31, originally from Dayton then sparked a nationwide controversy after she called police on the two men. Hylton is no longer working at the Starbucks located in the downtown area of Philadelphia, a spokeswoman told several media outlets since the incident occurred in early April.

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