Academics from the University of Texas at Dallas Jindal School of Management and Boston College Carroll School of Management, in collaboration with SafeGraph, released a comprehensive research study that revealed Starbucks visits declined 6.8%, relative to nearby restaurants and cafes, after the company changed to an open bathroom policy.

“The results in our study highlight the difficulty companies can have when trying to engage in different forms of socially responsible behavior,” said David Solomon, Associate Professor, Boston College, and Umit Gurun, Professor, University of Texas at Dallas. “Our team was very interested in what the economic consequences would be of an open bathroom policy as an example of providing a public good. While the hope is always that providing public goods will be rewarded by the market with increased sales and new potential customers, this isn’t necessarily the case. In this instance, even taking into account new people brought in by the policy, the total number of visits was significantly lower, consistent with crowding of tables and bathrooms deterring customers.”

Are their bathroom issues on the Democrat side of the aisle.