Tims...another PR problem

[Kip Powick]

No good deed involving doughnuts, it appears, goes unpunished.

Two weeks after an employee at a Tim Hortons in London was fired, then rehired, after she gave a child a free Timbit, Toronto investment manager Teresa Lee bought breakfast Wednesday for a pregnant homeless woman at a Tim Hortons downtown – then was scolded by a restaurant employee unhappy that the homeless woman stayed in the restaurant to eat.

The employee, Lee said, told her the Tim Hortons at King and Victoria Sts. does not let homeless people eat inside, even if they are eating Tim Hortons food, because they "make a mess."

"I said, `She purchased the goods, there's no reason she shouldn't be able to eat in the store,'" said Lee. "He said, `No, she didn't purchase it, you purchased it.' I said, `They were purchased. There's no reason she doesn't have the right to eat it in the store.' He said, `No, she's going to make a mess, who's going to clean up that mess? Are you going to clean up that mess?'"

The homeless woman, Tim Hortons spokesperson Rachel Douglas wrote in an email yesterday, had been "disruptive to customers and staff" on "several" occasions in the past. But Douglas did not say the woman had caused any problems Wednesday morning, and she apologized later to Lee — though Lee was unsatisfied with what Douglas said.

Walking to her office Wednesday around 8 a.m., Lee, 34, said she saw the homeless woman lying on a grate on King St. When the woman got upset after police told her to move, Lee asked if she was hungry.

Lee bought her a sandwich, a Boston cream doughnut, and chocolate milk. The woman, Lee said, sat down at a corner table, "not bothering anybody," to eat. When Lee walked out the door, the employee followed to admonish her.

Douglas said the homeless woman, who could not be located later for comment, had been asked to leave the restaurant on several previous occasions. Tim Hortons, she said, does not have a policy on the treatment of the homeless; it is up to franchises to "make delicate judgment decisions when dealing with any disruptive customers to ensure the store is pleasant, comfortable and safe."

But she acknowledged the woman had not been disruptive Wednesday before the employee rebuked Lee. "What happened here was the act of a Good Samaritan and we agree it was not handled in the best of manners. We have since apologized to the customer."

Lee, who works at an investment firm at Yonge and King Sts., said that apology was incomplete. Douglas appeared to apologize only for how the restaurant treated her, she said, not the homeless woman. "I don't think she directly admitted what they did wrong," Lee said.

The Lee incident Wednesday and the Timbit controversy two weeks earlier illustrates the challenges companies like Tim Hortons face in protecting their brand images from negative publicity created by the decisions of their franchises.

Ninety-five per cent of the Canadian stores in the Tim Hortons chain are owned by independent franchisees who pay annual fees to the company, not by Tim Hortons itself. The company, "a Canadian icon of best practices from a franchising perspective," extensively trains franchisees on the treatment of customers, said Perry Maisonneuve, the principal at Northern Lights Franchise Consultants in Mississauga. "But it comes down to judgment. Somebody is Johnny-on-the-spot, they're there at that time, and they're going to react."

Maisonneuve said a specific company policy on the treatment of the homeless would probably be "too narrow"; Tony Wilson, a franchise lawyer at Boughton Law Corp. in Vancouver, said "it's just common sense" to most restaurant owners that they should not evict homeless customers.

But after another public controversy, Wilson said, "I'll bet you dollars to navy beans Tim Hortons is developing a policy right now on it."

[conehead]

I'll bet you dollars to navy beans.

[chockalicious]

I don't have a problem with the eviction of a previously disruptive homeless person. It may not have been handled well but the basic concept of wanting to protect your business and create a good environment for your customers I do not have a problem with.

Lee, who works at an investment firm at Yonge and King Sts

Perhaps she should have taken the homeless woman to her firm's atrium or lunch room and fed her there, I have a feeling her reaction would have been quite different.

[Fido]

I notice the well dressed investment woman didn't stay and have lunch with her new friend.

[Don Hudson]

When we're downtown and are approached or see someone asking for a handout (like "spare" change) we never give money but if able, find a local Tim's, (or *buks, or whatever) and buy them a coffee and a bagel and take it to them. As far as them being in the establishment, it never occurred to us to take them in.

Like it was in India on the layover when a bunch of kids or older beggars would gather round the cab or the cart we were riding in, sometimes the food we offer gets chucked because it's not money and sometimes the receiver is grateful and eats; the choice isn't ours but more often they eat.

In such a story, "generosity" or "heartlessness" are easy impressions to create. They are templated upon the situation by the news media always ready to create polar-opposite strawmen. We then each hitch our wagons to the polar end which fits our world view. The media's target, Tim's, or whoever, gets a rap and the image of the homeless person gets reified as being a "less than desireable person in polite, sanitized company", (who's probably a drug addict and wants to rob us, right? - nevermind that he/she may have been a professional now down on his/her luck - it happens, as we know).

Clearly the "rules of the street" don't overlap the "rules of business" so the collision is inevitable but the coverage of such is not. This is because tension and opposition sells, and unsung cooperation and quiet address do not.

There is another such issue with a bit more import and that is the southern US church which has a court order banning a severely autistic young adult from the church's Sunday service. The resulting collision in a society of "inate individual rights" is inevitable. In Canada there is a similar case, (here in Vancouver, but several may be googled as well as places where church communities are dealing with the issue: Jonathan's Child), where the solution was to not embrace confrontation for it's own sake but to seek a viable solution which respected the church's need to carry on with it's business and the member's need for, and right to, inclusion. It is only a variation on the more-trivial Tim's story but brings heart-rending awarenesses of what some families must endure in their daily lives.

Anyway, my 2c.

[Ex 9A Guy]

I notice the well dressed investment woman didn't stay and have lunch with her new friend.

Holy crap you guys are brutal.

This lady, well dressed or not, did a GOOD thing. A random act of kindness and you have the gall to criticize her for it. If we all did somethig similar just once this world would be a better place.

Whether the homeless woman had been disruptive in the past is a problem that the franchise management obviously have to manage but not by berating the good samaritian. In this case she was not disruptive and was consuming food purchased on the premises so she had as much right to stay and eat as any other customer.

Who knows if she was even the same homeless woman. I find we (myself included) tend to paint all less fortunate than us with a pretty wide brush.

[dagger]

If a fast food restaurant or donut store wants my sympathy, they have to prove they are dedicated to a high standard of cleanliness to begin with. I find at some TH stores in downtown Toronto the counter staff is too busy to get out and take the empty cups, trays, napkins, etc, off the tables and wipe them. Often, I have to move somebody else's refuse off the table. If that's the standard - and their washrooms, even when accessible only by key, are not much better - they aren't on 100% solid ground with me if they gripe about a pregnant homeless woman.

[Don Hudson]

they aren't on 100% solid ground with me if they gripe about a pregnant homeless woman.

Relative cleanliness and associated local hypocrisies notwithstanding, if important at all I guess it's the principle that's the thing and not the individual case. "Inclusiveness" and "rights" are current societal matters which the media and "the public", (I'd like to meet "the public" someday ) always climb aboard; here's another one and Tim's, like others is currently back on it's heels. It'll be someone else tomorrow. Mind you, unlike most establishments, AC is on the Toronto Star's autodump list...