I think the dislike of major corporations by many of my mudcat friends has clouded the issue here. If you read the whole article Jeri posted a link to, you would also see that Starbucks contributed 1 million dollars to the NY relief fund, and furnished free coffee to the Ground Zero workers.

It appears to me that some employee, who had not been authorized to donate free water, coffee, rolls, or anything else, did what an employee is expected to do. He/she sold the water. Decisions to offer free merchandise are not made at the counter, they are made at the management or ownership level. Also, it is easy to to use hindsight in a situation like this and criticize, criticize, criticize.

I don't know if all Starbucks stores are company owned, or if they are franchise operations. If they are franchises, the owners of the franchise probably would make this decision anyway, not corporate headquarters. In this case, corporate headquarters is about 3,000 miles of NYC. How in the world would they even know such an event took place as the events of that terrible day unfolded. Corporate headquarters did respond after the happening was publicized, and a check for $130 was sent to the offended parties. Would they have sent the check if there had not been such negative publicity? Who knows, but why not give them the benefit of the doubt? I'll tell you why, in my opinion. Because major corporations never do anything good.

DougR