Is it ok to take a few straws from a major corporate coffee chain when you didn’t buy anything? What if you regularly buy drinks? Better or worse than buying a drip coffee and filling it 1/2 full of cream because you’re too broke or cheap to pay for a latte? It’s an ethical minefield, really. Also, did you know that hotels think it’s stealing to take the little shampoos?
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It’s 100% okay to take straws! Remember the golden rule: Stealing isn’t stealing if it’s from a huge corporation and you don’t get caught.
the cost of the straws, cream, sugar, etc. is figured into the retail price of the drink; you’re already paying for it if you buy something from them.
same with the shampoo.
My brain is stuck trying to think of a “monstrous vermin” and ethics at the same time, but that’s just my homo-sapiens-centric mindset.
which is why my world changed with the internet
Is it ok to take a few straws from a major corporate coffee chain when you didn’t buy anything? No.
What if you regularly buy drinks? No.
Better or worse than buying a drip coffee and filling it 1/2 full of cream because you’re too broke or cheap to pay for a latte? Better.
as long as most people don’t do it, you’re fine. if everyone started doing it we’d have a problem. but fortunately most people don’t need to do it, so the few people that do, are OK:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
just walk in, take straws and leave? Or were you there with someone else who made a purchase?
Straw theft is more okay than making a cheap pretend latte, only because using up all the free milk in the canisters is EXTREMELY annoying to the person who has to refill them every ten minutes.
no, wasn’t with someone who made a purchase. those desperate times being two mint-filled caipirinhas and no more straws at home. we washed the straws. btw – I always pay for my milk. :)
I feel the twinge, but when I buy a lot of stuff from certain places, I sort of consider them a utility there for my convenience–particularly with regard to bathrooms. After all, if I have a drip at one Starbucks, shouldn’t I be able to excrete it out at another? I also take shampoos from hotels. Towels, I don’t take. Basically, anything consumable in a hotel is mine.
It’s far better than than making a fake latte. The worst offenders of the fake latte people are those who shamelessly ask for a tall coffee in a grande cup. Now that’s crossing my border when they make themselves a grande fake latte that way.
Take the straw. Support local.
Have excessive straw theft and illegal cheapo lattes eaten so deeply into that poor store’s profits, causing Starbucks to include it on the hatchet list and putting the employees (currently forced to refill the milk canisters and straw dispensers every 10 minutes) out of work?
Drop the straw, leave the store, and take a picture of the cafe. It might be gone tomorrow.
I like to bring a cup… usually full. They have half & half and I have coffee, serendipity.
I order another though, and use my mug from home, so it all evens out.