No More Peets Coffee for Me

Posted on Thursday, April 12, 2012 by Post Scripts

by D. Franklin

Editors note: We recognize that many of the homeless are mentally ill and it’s through no fault of their own that they are doomed to wander the streets, dirty, disheveled and unwanted. It’s a sad situation and as a nation I know we can do better. These people need to be in mental health facility where they would at least have a chance at living a somewhat normal life. However, we also recognize that businesses have a right to protect their property and their customers from the unwanted intrusions by disruptive persons, including the mentally ill-homeless. The following is an account of a confrontation of the kind that happens in Chico all the time. Is the author right or wrong? You be the judge.

Ah, there’s nothing better than meeting friends over a hot cup of coffee at a downtown coffee shop. One of my favorite haunts is Peet’s Coffee shop in Chico, 2nd and Main St., but I may have to find a new place.

Today was the second time in 5 days I saw this unbelievably dirty, crazy bum inside Peet’s with his huge backpack, bedroll and assorted clothing affixed to the backpack. This flea infested troll hasn’t seen shower for months and he’s totally bonkers…he needs to be in an institution, not on the street. (Thank you Gov. Ronald Reagan for closing down all the state mental institutions)

This guy sitting next to me is pathetic. He’s rank and Peet’s is an otherwise clean place like you would expect from a downtown gourmet coffee shop. Now I have a bum’s backpack in the my face, I feel like I am at the rescue mission, not the coffee shop.

Mr. Bum stands up, walks around in a few circles and sits back down. He repeats this every few minutes. Next, he wanders over to counter where the lids for the “to-go” cups are kept, along with sugar, milk etc., suddenly there’s a loud crash. He’s dropped a plate on the tile floor and it’s broken into shards. The counter girl, about 20 years old, comes over quickly to clean up the broken plate. By the look on her face she’s not happy, but she says nothing as she cleans up. The bum leers at her – she says something to him, I can’t hear what, but, Mr. Bum doesn’t like it. He scowls and returns to his table muttering to himself.

He sits there for a few minutes, repeatedly jamming a straw into the palm of his hand, then he picks up his soiled backpack heads back to the condiment counter near the front doors. I’m hoping he doesn’t handle anything. He doesn’t, but he starts sweeping things off the window ledge with his hands. A half dozen plastic lids have already fallen off the counter and he kicks at them, knocking them into the center of the floor. He’s shoving some small items, packets of sugar, etc., onto the floor for Ms. Nice to clean up – because he’s mad.

She returns to clean up the mess and she looks frightened because this guy is turning aggressive.

I see her pick up the items and place them carefully in the trash. She notices Mr. Bum has left his paper cup with hot coffee sitting on the table behind her. (Gee, I wonder what she will do with it?) Ms. Nice picks up the coffee and says politely ,”You forgot your coffee” and (oh no) hands it to him, but in a way she won’t have skin to skin contact. This is probably not the smartest idea in the world… handing a crazy, agitated bum a hot cup of coffee, unless you need a coffee bath. But, Ms. Nice hands him the hot coffee and I wait for it hit her face, one, two, three…(this is actually getting entertaining.)

I’m surprised, he threw the coffee cup at the garbage can! It splatters across the floor. Once again, Ms. Nice springs into action and grabs a wet mop to do the clean up. It’s cleaned up before any customers can claim a slip and fall. The bum, apparently having gotten his revenge walks outside where he starts kicking at the metal chairs.

Nobody behind the counter calls the cops and I wonder why?

I’m out of coffee. . . I walk over to the counter to order a refill and nice girl #2 waits on me. I strike up a little conversation, “You know I’ve seen that bum walking in traffic, he’s a total wacko why would you even let him in here?” She tells me they don’t have the authority to tell him to leave. I can’t believe I just heard that? I said, sure you do, but she says no they don’t – because “corporate” won’t let them. “What?” Ms. Nice #2 says, “Well, actually we have called the police before and they just refuse to come out. They said our place is like a magnet for crazies there’s nothing they can do.”

Then she adds with a chipper smile, “But, corporate says if customers want to call the police they can, but we can’t.” I’m thinking, that’s probably not going to happen, whats a customer going to say, this is Peet’s problem, not the customers. I said, you really DO have every right to call the cops and they are required to respond. If they don’t, I would make a complaint. Any business has the right (and perhaps the duty) to refuse service to bums or anyone else who is causing trouble.

I told Nice girl #2 you need to call the cops on that guy for your own safety and the safety of customers, corporate is wrong and besides they are not here to see this. (Then I had this caveat) “But, if they’re going to let bums hang out in here, then I guess I will be going across the street where there is no “corporate” and best of all no bums with head lice or fleas.

The owner of the other coffee shop (The Upper Crust) is also the baker and she takes considerable pride in having her place ship-shape. I sincerely doubt she would put up with bums or anyone trashing her place.

Now I’m finishing my coffee and guess what? Mr. Bum walks back in for round two. I see he has a gift card in his hand to buy more coffee, no doubt some bleeding heart that felt sorry for him or perhaps it was competitor? Ha! Okay, that’s it I’m done, I’ve seen enough and ironically as I walk out the door another bum is approaching, hes like the twin to the one inside. He’s talking to himself and about every 3rd word is a loud “DIE!” Mumble, mumble DIE! Oh great, c-ya.

I left vowing to let “corporate” know how I feel about their bum policy and I think I shall write in to Post Scripts and let everyone in town know too.

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17 Responses to No More Peets Coffee for Me

  1. Jack says:
    Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 10:30 am

    My guess is somebody at Starbucks is handing out Peets Gift cards to the boys at the shelter! lol Good way to cut down on the business at Peets.

  2. Toby says:
    Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 10:46 am

    It really is too bad, I like peets coffee. I really like Dutch Brothers, if you are in your car and need a fix, give them a try. Back in the day when the “old mall” was still a mall it had a great coffee shop down by the knife shop, that guy knew his stuff about coffee and baking. I miss that shop and that mall.

  3. Tina says:
    Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 2:04 pm

    D. Franklin I agree that the problem is REAL. I take exception to one thing:

    “(Thank you Gov. Ronald Reagan for closing down all the state mental institutions)”

    The overly used smear does not reflect reality. I don’t know what your political persuasion is but I hope you are open minded enough to be interested in what actually happened.

    The left hates Ronald Reagan and they would love to make certain that people believe throwing mental patients out of hospitals was something Reagan conjured up in his right-wing diabolical laboratory. It isnt the truth, however, not even close. The left gets away with it because the truth behind the lie is often obscured through the passage of time. The following NYT article gives a chronology of events that spanned a period of time from Brown to Brown, governor wise:

    http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-mental-patients-began.html

    THE policy that led to the release of most of the nation’s mentally ill patients from the hospital to the community is now widely regarded as a major failure. Sweeping critiques of the policy, notably the recent report of the American Psychiatric Association, have spread the blame everywhere, faulting politicians, civil libertarian lawyers and psychiatrists.

    But who, specifically, played some of the more important roles in the formation of this ill-fated policy? What motivated these influential people and what lessons are to be learned?

    A detailed picture has emerged from a series of interviews and a review of public records, research reports and institutional recommendations. The picture is one of cost-conscious policy makers, who were quick to buy optimistic projections that were, in some instances, buttressed by misinformation and by a willingness to suspend skepticism.

    Many of the psychiatrists involved as practitioners and policy makers in the 1950’s and 1960’s said in the interviews that heavy responsibility lay on a sometimes neglected aspect of the problem: the overreliance on drugs to do the work of society.

    The records show that the politicians were dogged by the image and financial problems posed by the state hospitals and that the scientific and medical establishment sold Congress and the state legislatures a quick fix for a complicated problem that was bought sight unseen.

    ‘They’ve Gone Far, Too Far’

    In California, for example, the number of patients in state mental hospitals reached a peak of 37,500 in 1959 when Edmund G. Brown was Governor, fell to 22,000 when Ronald Reagan attained that office in 1967, and continued to decline under his administration and that of his successor, Edmund G. Brown Jr. The senior Mr. Brown now expresses regret about the way the policy started and ultimately evolved. ”They’ve gone far, too far, in letting people out,” he said in an interview.

    Dr. Robert H. Felix, who was then director of the National Institute of Mental Health and a major figure in the shift to community centers, says now on reflection: ”Many of those patients who left the state hospitals never should have done so. We psychiatrists saw too much of the old snake pit, saw too many people who shouldn’t have been there and we overreacted. The result is not what we intended, and perhaps we didn’t ask the questions that should have been asked when developing a new concept, but psychiatrists are human, too, and we tried our damnedest.”

    Dr. John A. Talbott, president of the American Psychiatric Association, said, ”The psychiatrists involved in the policy making at that time certainly oversold community treatment, and our credibility today is probably damaged because of it.” He said the policies ”were based partly on wishful thinking, partly on the enormousness of the problem and the lack of a silver bullet to resolve it, then as now.”

    The original policy changes were backed by scores of national professional and philanthropic organizations and several hundred people prominent in medicine, academia and politics. The belief then was widespread that the same scientific researchers who had conjured up antibiotics and vaccines during the outburst of medical discovery in the 50’s and 60’s had also developed penicillins to cure psychoses and thus revolutionize the treatment of the mentally ill.

    And these leaders were prodded into action by a series of scientific studies in the 1950’s purporting to show that mental illness was far more prevalent than had previously been believed.

    Finally, there was a growing economic and political liability faced by state legislators. Enormous amounts of tax revenues were being used to support the state mental hospitals, and the institutions themselves were increasingly thought of as ”snake pits” or facilities that few people wanted.

    One of the most influential groups in bringing about the new national policy was the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health, an independent body set up by Congress in 1955. One of its two surviving members, Dr. M. Brewster Smith, a University of California psychologist who served as vice president, said the commission took the direction it did because of ”the sort of overselling that happens in almost every interchange between science and government.” (continues)

    Another blog sheds light on the truth about the ACLUs involvement and the progressive idea that exists behind the lie:

    http://onespeedbikerpolitico.blogspot.com/2011/01/revisionist-history-meantal-health.html

    The blaming Ronald Reagan for destruction the mental heath system is typical progressive revisionists history. By the late 1960s, the idea that the mentally ill were not so different from the rest of us, or perhaps were even a little bit more sane, became trendy.

    Reformers dreamed of taking the mentally ill out of the large institutions and housing them in smaller, community-based residences where they could live more productive and fulfilling lives. Simultaneously, the ACLU was pushing a mental health patients right agenda that resulted in OConnor v. Donaldson (see below) In 1967, Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS), which went into effect in 1969 and quickly became a national model. Among other things, it prohibited forced medication or extended hospital stays without a judicial hearing. The Governor signed a bill inspired by those who clamored for the “civil rights” of the mentally ill to be on the street and who claimed they’d be better off with community counseling.

    So no, Reagan, didn’t close mental hospitals or put anyone on the street. Progressive views on mental health, a misguided ACLU, and politicians who “know better” did it. Then finally (the last year Reagan was governor), OConnor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1975), the Supreme Court found a constitutional right to liberty for mental health patients: “There is…no constitutional basis for confining such persons involuntarily if they are dangerous to no one.” With this constitutional recognition, the practice of mental health law became a process of limiting and defining the power of the state to detain and treat. The result was a codification of mental health rights that have done away with non-voluntary commitment except in extreme cases.

    Another progressive idea that ends in misery…whoopie…and sold to the public wrapped in the red white and blue of civil rights. BAH!

  4. Toby says:
    Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 2:52 pm

    Tina, you rock! TY for going the extra mile to inform the uninformed, its gets old hearing the same old smear over and over.Not that I think you have changed any minds but it was worth the try.

  5. Ron Toppi says:
    Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 4:09 pm

    @D. Franklin,
    At a certain point we are all going to have to come to grips with the fact that we are all in this together. All of this “us” and “them” and “bum’s” etc.? We are all human in need of dignity. It is not the fault of mentally ill people that there is a lack of services or “institutions” for them to turn. It’s not their fault that the rest of society wishes to sweep them away, marginalize and shun them.
    It is unfortunate that you had to experience that while trying to enjoy a cup of coffee. But imagine for a moment what that “bum” must be experiencing? Ever tried that? Put yourself in the other persons shoes? Maybe ask him his story, put a human story to the him. I have spent a lot of time with homeless people in my life and found many are just like you and me. Even pedaled my bicycle across the country with a homeless/mentally ill friend.
    So, it’s a matter of perspective and humility and compassion.

  6. Tina says:
    Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 4:53 pm

    Toby thanks for your support. the thing about liberal progressive myth making is that its always so absurd you come away thinking that guy can’t possibly be as mean and thoughtless as he’s being painted…every single time I discover it isn’t true and there is a lot more to the story than is being told.

    I liked that coffee shop in the old mall, and the old mall, too. It’s a shame the economy has been so bad for so long. The guy who bought it and designed the current storefronts envisioned something much better than what we have. Things have changed so much who knows what tomorrow will bring? I just hope it’s something interesting that gives the north end of the city better shopping options.

  7. Post Scripts says:
    Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 5:07 pm

    I was able to gather a little more hearsay only info. on the possible “bum/homeless” person in question. If I have the right guy, apparently he is rumored to have a long rap sheet, including drugs. The street rumor is he is a “huffer” or someone who smells paint or glue for a high and that destroys your brain. He’s considered fairly harmless, but he can become agitated. He’s been picked up a few times by Chico PD as a 5150.

    Thanks Tina for that info. Very helpful and I appreciate what Ron had to say too. Very thoughtful, very compassionate. -Jack

  8. Rex Crosley says:
    Friday, April 13, 2012 at 6:20 am

    Other coffee shops discriminate against a marginalized group of our society. DRINK PEETS COFFEE!!!

  9. Joyce says:
    Friday, April 13, 2012 at 6:36 am

    This is a sad situation all round. The fact that this poor man has ended up in this predicament for one reason or another. I imagine he too is distressed as to why he is faced with living his life in this manner.

    It’s also difficult for the staff and customers having to endure his uncomfortable behavior, and one has to feel for them too as they cope with this situation.

    If only there was an answer.

  10. Post Scripts says:
    Friday, April 13, 2012 at 10:15 am

    This is another perfect example of the homeless problem in Chico. A Chico man charged with robbery after allegedly stealing beer from a convenience store has been declared mentally incompetent.

    On Tuesday, Judge Clare Keithley suspended the criminal proceedings against John Garrett Bentley after a doctor reported Bentley was incompetent. Bentley, 27, was in Butte County Superior Court Thursday because he reportedly refused mental care treatment at Butte County Jail while awaiting a determination on where he would be placed until he could be restored to competency.

    Both the prosecution and the defense said a hearing was necessary to determine if Bentley could be forcibly given his medicine. Keithley said she would ask the county’s attorney if the jail was seeking the order and set a hearing for next Tuesday.

    Attorney Philip Heithecker, who represented Bentley during the hearing, said the defendant didn’t consent to taking medicine and did not want to be forcibly given the drugs. Speaking very softly, Bentley told the court he wouldn’t take the medicine and he doesn’t have to.

    “No one can tell me what to do with my health,” Bentley said.

    The defendant also said he’s not a felon and he isn’t supposed to be in jail.

    Keithley said the court has to be concerned about if Bentley is receiving the proper care for his safety and the safety of others at the jail.

    Bentley faces charges in three cases. He was charged with felony second-degree robbery and misdemeanor resisting an officer after he allegedly tried to

  11. Post Scripts says:
    Friday, April 13, 2012 at 10:17 am

    The liberals say you can’t force the mentally ill to take their meds or hold them in an institution for the own safety and this is what happens. When the mentally ill become unable to care for their own safety or the safety of others then it’s time for the state to help them, but force if necessary.

  12. Pie Guevara says:
    Friday, April 13, 2012 at 11:44 am

    Thank you Tina for handling the perennial false narrative that Reagan closed down the state mental institutions which has been long promulgated by the duplicitous liars and outrageous dirt bags of the progressive, Democrat left.

    One more reason why I am completely disgusted with Democrats and progressives. Don’t get me wrong, I do not hate them. I merely despise them. I despise everything they say, despise everything they do, and despise everything they represent (er, misrepresent in large part).

    Who needs further proof that if you tell a lie repeatedly, it becomes truth in the minds of the lazy. That lesson has not been lost on “progressives”. It is a tool they deploy constantly.

  13. Post Scripts says:
    Friday, April 13, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    Pie, yes i thought Tina did an excellent job of setting the record straight. I have been defending RR on this for years, but never as eloquently as Tina’s post. It was excellent.

  14. Libby says:
    Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 3:56 pm

    Nice try.

    It is quite correct that the psych establishment, entranced with newly developed pharmacology, hoped to move most of the mentally ill into community facilities, properly medicated.

    Alas, while Reagan was only too happy to depopulate the state’s mental hospital … somehow … funding for these community facilities never materialized in any of his state budgets. Surprise, surprise. And I don’t wonder at your attempt to revise history. It’s quite shameful.

    And then, no subsequent administration has had the balls to own that the pharmacological promise has failed to manifest. In consequence, you have legions of unmedicated, unsocial fellows in your face.

    What I don’t get, is where you get the nerve to snivel about it.

  15. GG says:
    Monday, April 16, 2012 at 8:42 am

    Regardless of which politician gets to take the credit for sending the mentally ill into our back yards, that isnt the issue any more.

    We are often presented with having to interact with these unkept and or misbehaving people. How to resolve the issue? During the civil rights era the campaign was, you cannot refuse service to someone just based upon the color of their skin. Ok, good. But now 40 years later almost every restaurant I go to has a sign that says we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. I moved to Chico in part because of Peets, yes really. I have seen and had to interact with the fellow were discussing. And guess what, I certainly do NOT want to say that restaurants have the right to refuse service to someone based upon the color of their skin, BUT really, there are other factors in play here as has been clearly outlined in the blog.

    I mean really, is it that difficult for the manager of Peets to walk up to this fellow and tell him to leave? And if the fellow is disruptive, the Chico police will not respond? Not sure I believe that But in most circumstances, the police wont be needed. What I find the most troubling part of this discussion is that you folks are saying Peets management and corporate say they can do nothing. They must.

  16. Tina says:
    Monday, April 16, 2012 at 9:00 am

    GG you have brought sanity to the issue. Thanks for adding your nickles worth (inflation) to our discussion. Hope you will weigh-in often!

  17. Ron says:
    Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 3:13 pm

    @ Joyce, there is an answer. People need to be included in the society around them, no matter who they are, what their “status” or “class” is. I know there are ways we can do this without depending on “the state” to take care of people in OUR communities. Care taking creates need and dependance. Inclusion helps restore human dignity.
    One reason “they” lash out is because is they are pushed away to the fringe. It is a simple action – re-action.
    We all really need to realize that we truly are all in this together! there is no us and them. there is no “those people”. We are those people to some else.

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