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Guy runs out of Starbucks with tip jar

A correspondent reports she saw a guy steal the tip jar at the Starbucks at 30 Rowes Wharft around 4:10 p.m. today - despite the best efforts of a barista and a single customer to stop him.

"I feel bad for the working staff, they're not rich," she said, adding she's also upset that while women in the shop called 911, "lots of men in there were buying coffee and they didn't even block the door nor tried to help."

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Comments

They've got a small acrylic box without a top or bottom that sits on the counter for tips.

The weight of the change keeps it from moving around but if anyone were to grab it the cash just drops on the counter.

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I've got a Tough Mudder coming up, wouldn't want to pull a hammy.

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"while women in the shop called 911, "lots of men in there were buying coffee and they didn't even block the door nor tried to help."

I thought we were all equal. The real question what did YOU do.

Sexist.

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Dumb comment. Any person who is able to help but won't is a spoiled, selfish, lazy, entitled brat. Case closed.

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What level of harm are you willing to incur for a fucking tip jar. His comment regarding sexism was dumb, her comment about specifically men was dumb, and yours managed to be the worst.

Nobody should advocate putting a person in harms way for literal pocket change.

I recall a CVS employee in boston getting stabbed, to death, if i recall, over something of similar value.

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Are you the judge and jury? Ha! I dont' think so. Get over yourself. I've helped out people in need in the past and I'm a small female. I've also been helped by men and women and have been thankful for it. How sad that you're proud that you bury your head in the sand when others are in need.

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why didn't she block the door?

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"lots of men in there were buying coffee and they didn't even block the door nor tried to help"

Abstracting away from the sexism in this comment, but is it really worth getting into a physical altercation (possibly getting stabbed) over a tip jar?

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This happened in a sandwich shop in Oakland last weekend. Hard to react and know what is going on.

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Nor should they have. Desperate people do desperate things and theres a reason literally every customer facing employee ever in this country is told not to chase thieves

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I worked at Home Depot a few years ago. Employees were told that if they confronted or chased a shoplifter they would be terminated. No exceptions.

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theres a reason literally every customer facing employee ever in this country is told not to chase thieves

Liability if the employee or the thief gets injured, plus liability for things like false imprisonment, assault, etc., if it turns out the thief is not guilty--or even if he *is* guilty, and the employee turns out to have used "excessive" force. (Shooting such a person simply to prevent his escape would generally be considered excessive, for instance.)

The ability to detain someone who's suspected of having attempted to shoplift merchandise is called "shopkeepers' privilege" under common law. It's been circumscribed and curtailed greatly in recent decades by lawsuits that have arisen when it turned out that the customer hadn't actually shoplifted, or when employees or agents used excessive force, or when the period of detention exceeded what was reasonably necessary to determine whether shoplifting may have occurred. Anti-shoplifting laws have also supplanted the common-law principle of shopkeepers' privilege in some states.

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this person faults customers for not trying to help stop the man or intervene.... Risk a possibly violent confrontation with a desperate man to save some starbucks employee's tip $?

I would stand by as well and just call 911... no one is being hurt - if there was then it would be a different story.

To try to apprehend a tips thief and get into a confrontation is a fools task at best.

This correspondent should feel free to intervene herself the next time this happens.

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I'd rather just replace the money from the tip jar than chase after some potentially violent criminal. Not risking injury or worse over 10s of dollars, regardless of whose it is.

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This happened repeatedly when I worked at a starbucks in the back bay a few years ago. Pretty sure it was always the same guy, but the staff was always different and nobody was ever 100% sure it was him, so we just had to dedicate someone to watching anyone who was loitering weirdly. (It would always happen in the evening when we were trying to clean.) We screwed the tip jars to the counter, but then once somebody opened the top and took all the bills out. We got little luggage locks for them, but that looked really sad and the keys got lost, or the locks broke or something. Eventually we just emptied them all the time so there was never much in there to steal.

We'd also get more than our fair share of dudes trying the "I gave you a 20, you only gave me change for a 10" scam, or passing counterfeit bills. There was a couple once who tried to pass the same ridiculous looking fake traveler's check a few days in a row. Homeless guys would steal sandwiches from the refrigerator case and we'd (mostly) try not to notice. There was a (very friendly) guy who would jerk off in the bathroom who we called the Honey Man. (Ask me why!) I mopped up urine out of the downstairs seating area during the Celtics victory parade. I also had to evacuate it once after a sewage line burst during a rainstorm and there was an inch of gray smelly water down there. The district manager said we had to stay open but we locked the doors anyway and had to put trash bags over our feet to go get our stuff out of the office.

This comment got long! I don't miss that job.

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No matter how much is was.

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There goes my constitutional right to loiter weirdly. Always getting it from the man.

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Ok, I'll say j it... Real men don't drink Starbucks.

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.

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...really don't give a shit.

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I'm going to sound like a company shill, but Starbucks Coffee is ten times better than Dunkin Donuts brown water.

It is always consistent, and for someone who drinks almost black coffee, as opposed to taking a splash of coffee in a cup of cream with a 1/4" base of sugar sludge, the difference is drastic.

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... why not ask for it black?

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This is the perfect kind of contrived platitude for one of those list-format blogspam pieces written by a college freshman and read by a similar audience.

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Oh you mean boston.com or gawker?

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You determine manhood based on coffee shop choice... how odd.

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Based on my, admittedly minute, genitals.

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Drink beer straight from the can
Have big muscles
Drive trucks with over-sized tires.
Have dog breeds such as pitbulls and Rottis.
Have tattoos
Have guns
Watch Fox News
Are members of the NRA
Call each other bro
Never cry
Don't wear pink

Have tiny dicks.

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"don't eat quiche."

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and hear similar statements from my friends, and I always ask them: Who is the real man, the one who drinks a Starbucks dark roast black, or the one who drinks a Dunkin regular with 4 creams and sugars?

When I ask them why they don't drink a Starbucks dark roast black, the answer is "it's too strong"........

Yep.

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...that demands their coffee beans come from the Ghimbi region of Ethipoia, and the beans were roasted no more than an hour ago, and the beans are ground in a $900 Baratza coffee grinder for 2.3 seconds, and the water is 96 degrees +- .1 degree Centigrade (always centigrade), and put into a $300 coffee press for 5 minutes 23.4 seconds, and....

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were eaten and subsequently pooped out by a civet cat.

Yes, that's a thing.

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but I learned a long time ago money is not worth dying for.

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It's easy to criticize the commenter for her lament about no one helping, but it was an honest expression so relax.

No harm would probably have come to anyone blocking the exit but I don't disrespect anyone who didn't. Fear (and, as I think the commenter is suggesting, indifference) is a strong emotion.

I've spent a lot of time in Starbucks and seen crime after crime after crime, from the South End to Back Bay to the Financial District - it's incredible, the amount of stealing. Starbucks does itself no favor by having merchandise near the doorways, making it easy to go in and out. And, people are stupid, too - they leave their shopping bags and personal items out in the open.

I've confronted maybe half a dozen people over the years, and every time I do and go home to talk about it, Terry says to me, "You're incredibly stupid." And, it's true.

A man came in to the Back Bay Starbucks (no doubt, the one mentioned above) and took a guy's cellphone that was on the counter behind him (again, stupid person). I saw it and confronted the man. I think I said, "You're going to have to give that back." He said no and headed for the door. I stood in the doorway ... and then got smart, real fast, and let him walk out. Someone else called 911 and the police came quickly and followed him up Ring Road.

I guess this sounds as though I'm tooting my own horn, but really I'm just saying 1) people do confront them; 2) those people are stupid; and, 3) if you want to steal something, go to Starbucks.

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I used to work at starbucks in the financial district when I was in college, this happened to us as well. My shift manager pulled some super hero shit and actually jumped OVER the counter and ran the guy down over multiple city blocks b/c apparently he used to do track and field. He knocked the tip jar out of the guys hands, and with the help of some bystanders collected the majority of it off the ground (missed some change). This was prior to the litigation in MA where starbucks was sued for "tipping managers," so these were also HIS tips, which he really needed for rent money. Then at least, shift managers were paid extremely poorly and did all the same work---and therefor deserved tips. I hope they increased the compensation when they took tips away. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do, but as a broke college student he definitely won badass barista of the century for me.

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