Evening

Working in the evenings can be a nice time, there is a slow wave of customers coming in, it makes it easy to get some closing tasks done, connect with customers that are in the lobby and collect your thoughts after working a long shift. This can get interrupted when a group of guys start to play their rock music loudly and refuse to leave the property.

Shantel, the Coffee Shop on Rainier's manager, has been with the company for about three months now. She came to this store about two weeks ago, and has several encounters with our homeless customers. This one happened around seven in the evening.

There were two men that asked for hot water, they put sugar and cream in it, which most people usually do. They looked kind of suspicious so I was keeping my eye on them, but they weren't bothering anyone, so I wasn't hovering. After about 30 minutes another guy comes in and they start to play rock music really loud. I go up to them and ask them, "Can you please turn the volume down? You can't have it that high if you're in the store." They then proceeded to yell and cuss at me so I asked them to leave and called the police.

They left, but stood out on the patio blocking the front door, I called the police again and told them that they are blocking the front door. About 10 minutes later one of the men started taking paper out of his backpack and ripping and throwing pieces into the bushes on our property. I opened the door and asked him, "Can you stop throwing trash in our bushes?" He immediately walked up to the door and started yelling. I shut the door immediately and asked the supervisor on duty to bring the keys so I could lock the door.

The police came about 15 minutes after that, and the men were talked to and asked to leave the property.

This is one of the more aggressive situations I've encountered with our homeless customer since starting at this store.