Starbucks’ Grandé Sidewalk Screw-up

STANDING ROOM ONLY: Coffee drinkers outside of Starbucks on Main Street have had no place to sit since early August.

City records show the coffee giant hasn’t secured an annual sidewalk permit for tables and chairs since 2004

The store has a new outside look, too: No tables and no chairs.

No, it’s not a corporate plot, as one local activist and Starbucks-sidewalk regular told Northampton Media. He complained that removing the outdoor tables and chairs had ripped apart the fabric of downtown, eradicating a space where people regularly congregate to talk about politics and the world, a bit of the inside coffee shop brought outside to the street, where civilization glides by and friendships are cultivated. Wrong.

Instead, it was a plain and simple screw-up by either a local or corporate manager who failed to comply with local regulations requiring an annual permit to place furniture on the city’s sidewalks.

According to records at the Department of Public Works, the Starbucks at 211 Main St. here hasn’t taken out an annual permit for outside dining for years. And although the company last week did submit a drawing showing two tables and four chairs and sent the DPW a check for $300, the drawing lacked any specific measurements as required in the DPW’s sidewalk regulations and was rejected.

“It didn’t comply with our requirements,” Ann Furciniti, a principal clerk at the DPW, told Northampton Media Tuesday.

Anonymous Tip and Dropping the Ball

Furciniti described the sequence of events: In early August, an anonymous tipster told the DPW that Starbucks’ sidewalk tables and chairs were not in compliance with city regulations. A check of DPW files showed there was no current permit. Company managers were called, company officials called the DPW from the Starbucks Corporation’s Seattle headquarters and from its Boston regional office, both times assuring compliance. A packet recently mailed to the DPW lacked specifics required by the regulations. No compliance, no permit, no outdoor tables and no chairs.

It seems the oversight had been longstanding.

“Starbucks hasn’t had a permit since 2004,” Furciniti said. “Somewhere along the line, the ball was dropped (and) it’s their responsibility.”

DPW Director Edward S. Huntley agreed. “The DPW does not have the staff to check compliance with the downtown permits that we issue,” Huntley told Northampton Media.

It was on Huntley’s desk that the Starbucks application landed last Thursday after arriving in the mail. Despite the strict measurement requirements for use of the city’s sidewalk, Huntley said, there was no dimensional information on the drawing that was submitted showing two tables and four chairs. “The tables and chairs permit application needs plans with measurements to ensure compliance with the BPW policy,” he said.

Right at the top, the DPW’s regulations state what is required: “The application shall include a photograph or graphic design and a detailed sketch of the tables and chairs indicating all dimensions and locations relative to the sidewalk.”

No dimensions, no permit.

“They pulled the chairs out from underneath us.”

Furciniti said she did everything she could to get compliance. And while the store was out of compliance, and had been for years, she never told the shift supervisor she spoke with on Aug. 5 to remove the tables and chairs, just to get the application in to the DPW.

INSIDE STARBUCKS: A new look after interior renovations, but no tables outside for now.

But, according to one angry patron who yelled at Furciniti later that day, someone at Starbucks ordered an immediate removal of the outside furniture shortly after her call to the downtown store. According to the angry patron, she recalled, “They just pulled the chairs out from underneath us.”

The DPW documents, entitled “Regulations for Placing Tables & Chairs on Public Ways” is very specific about how much room pedestrians must be afforded when outdoor furniture is placed on city sidewalks. And it differs, for example, depending on exactly where along Main Street the tables and chairs are located. For the section between Masonic Street and Cracker Barrel Alley, the minimum clearance is 6 feet. There are also minimum requirements for how close to doors, or to adjacent property lines, the furniture may be placed.

Starbucks has yet to provide these necessary dimensions. Until they do, Huntley says, there will be no outdoor tables and chairs.

The annual fee for such sidewalk furniture is $200 per table and $25 per chair, with the maximum yearly charge capped at $300. The permit is good between April 1 and Oct. 31. The applicant must also provide an insurance certificate showing coverage up to $300,000.

Northampton Media has tried to reach Starbucks’ spokespeople. We sent an email to the corporate offices in Seattle, with no reply. And we called the company’s district manager in Boston, Steve Patterson. We’re still waiting for a reply.

The Haymarket Cafe offers fully-permitted outdoor seating at the back of its establishment.

It’s not as if coffee drinkers have no options. Starbucks is sandwiched between two other coffee shops on Main Street, each about a block away. There’s The Haymarket, a two-floor, locally owned store at 185 Main St. that serves a variety of specialty coffees, meals, baked goods and juice drinks. The store has a few tables in the alley out back.

In the other direction is Dunkin’ Donuts, the corporate behemoth that claims to be “the largest coffee and baked goods chain in the world providing you, our loyal customers, with high quality coffee, bagels, donuts and other baked goods since 1950.” The store, located at 273 Main St., has no tables and chairs out front.

On the Starbucks website, the 39-year-old company boasts more than 15,000 stores in 50 countries, and describes itself as “the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world. And with every cup, we strive to bring both our heritage and an exceptional experience to life.”

And Starbucks’ mission, the site claims, is clear: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”

For some coffee drinkers here in Northampton, they want that mission to start here and now: get those tables and chairs back.

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