men and women,
originally uploaded by hannabirke.

We have been reading reports about people who are being stopped from taking pictures both inside and outside Starbucks stores. We have defended photographers whenever the picture was being taken of the store from public property, however have remained silent when the picture was taken inside the store. After all property owners can establish rules of what can and cannot be done while ON their property. That is of course IF the rules exist and IF they are fairly enforced.

It seems that the managers and baristas of the local Starbucks stores are making up their own “Corporate Policy”. Take for example the story of the photographer who took this picture:

was told though that photographs are “not allowed” in Starbucks.
why?
“corporate policy”.
really in NYC too? because there are a lot of people photographing in Starbucks there.
“corporate policy”

What is the corporate policy? It seems that a corporate spokesperson who posts in a new Flickr group ESTABLISHED BY STARBUCKS

says:

we have no formal policy around customers taking non-press related pictures in-store so if you hear otherwise, it might just be because your barista is camera-shy

We would hope that Starbucks will learn from the Amtrak incident in which a photographer was arrested while taking pictures for Amtrak’s photo contest. Amtrak settled the resulting lawsuit for “five figures”. If you are going to start a photo contest or a photo sharing group encouraging others to take pictures, expect that people will take you up on that offer. Also expect that they will become very angry and confrontations will happen if employees continue to repeat the corporate NON-policy against photography.

Starbucks proclaims on Flickr:

Calling all Starbucks fans – this group is for you! On behalf of Starbucks, I welcome you to our brand new group. I hope this will be a fun place for you to ‘visit’ Starbucks stores across the globe through pictures and videos, share about your favorite drink, store, or barista, and meet other Starbucks fans.

Someone better tell the baristas!

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