SBUX Starbucks Corporation

By Annie Gasparro and Tawnell D. Hobbs 

Starbucks Corp. is facing pressure following the arrest Thursday of two black men at one of its locations in Philadelphia.

On the Starbucks website Saturday, Chief Executive Kevin Johnson apologized, said the company would investigate and said he planned to meet with the two men and offer an apology after the "reprehensible outcome."

Mr. Johnson also said failures in practices and training that led to the arrests.

"The video shot by customers is very hard to watch and the actions in it are not representative of our Starbucks Mission and Values," he said. "Our store manager never intended for these men to be arrested and this should never have escalated as it did."

Community organizers say they plan a protest Monday morning at the Starbucks location in Philadelphia. Among demands, the organizers want the employee who called the police to be fired, along with the officers who arrested the men. Some also demonstrated Sunday.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said that Starbucks employees told the police the men were trespassing because they refused to leave after they were denied use of the restroom because they hadn't bought anything. Mr. Ross, who is black, defended the arrests of the men who were later released, and said his officers did nothing wrong.

An attorney for the two men, Lauren Wimmer, wasn't immediately available for comment. The men haven't been identified.

A customer's video posted online showed several police officers coming to arrest the two men, handcuffing them while other patrons told the police the men weren't doing anything and asked why they were being arrested.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney has ordered the city's Commission on Human Relations to consider whether Starbucks needs "implicit bias training for its employees." The mayor said Saturday that the incident appears "to exemplify what racial discrimination looks like in 2018."

Starbucks has been embroiled in controversial issues before.

In 2015, founder and then-Chief Executive Howard Schultz, tried to address race relations by having baristas write "race together" on customers' cups, receiving criticism and ending the practice shortly thereafter.

In 2013, Mr. Schultz said guns would not be welcome in any of its stores, a move that upset some of its customers.

Other companies have found themselves facing backlash for decisions or statements made by its executives or employees. Last fall, Papa John's then-Chief John Schnatter faced customer protests when he took aim at the National Football League for allowing players to protest racial injustice during the national anthem. He later stepped down. During the 2016 presidential campaign, conservative customers called for a boycott of Kellogg Co. after it pulled its advertising from Breitbart News.

Write to Annie Gasparro at annie.gasparro@wsj.com and Tawnell D. Hobbs at Tawnell.Hobbs@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 15, 2018 15:00 ET (19:00 GMT)

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