You’re right of course. However, I see this as working against the advantage of both COB and the Starbucks franchise in The Bahamas, assuming that both of them plan for the long-term — COB because its relegating the welfare of the people within its walls to last place and Starbucks because they are losing the opportunity to capitalize on a future customer base that might be far more lucrative down the line for them than now appears to be.

I don’t know the numbers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Sbux outlets that don’t rely primarily on tourists (like Palmdale, the now-defunct COB, and undoubtedly Harbour Bay) are more likely to show consistency in patronage in this economy than those that face the visitors — downtown, Marina Village, and the Casino (I don’t know about the Mall outlet, which I have only been in once, but which was at that time not busy). I am told that the Casino outlet is also closing, which does not surprise me. But the fact that Starbucks COB is almost always populated (even though the expenditure per head is probably less than elsewhere) suggests to me that Starbucks had a captive audience. Students mightn’t be able to afford the prices today (which also suggests to me that perhaps there should be a more affordable line of items available), but if you create coffee addicts they will come back (as I have done since my exposure to Starbucks in Canada in 1995) over time, and their expenditure will double or triple.

Much of my frustration here comes from our inability — or is it an unwillingness — to trust our fellow citizens, to believe that a good idea needs to be given room to blossom. But I’m writing another article on this. I believe that it might have been possible for The Bahamas to provide a local model for global development, much as we did with the Urban Renewal programme some years ago. However, we tend in these cases to opt for safety, to go with old models, rather than trying things that work. Everywhere else in the world corporations like Starbucks are seeking to build partnerships that offer profits in ways that are not simply monetary (everywhere else corporate entities seem to understand that building brand loyalty and goodwill are as good as money). It saddens me to realize yet again that in The Bahamas money is all that counts.

I wasn’t going to comment, but remembered this quote that is about as old as econmics itself.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.”

- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.

The result: a “front room” society where the best of everything is put on display for visitors and not used by locals, and a sense that second- or third-class is “good enough” for citizens. This hierarchy works best, too, when the visitors’ faces and skins fit with our concept of who should receive that sort of treatment; it doesn’t extend so readily to people who look like us. And it is almost never extended to the young.

Starbucks was a happy accident; it was imported with a corporate philosophy that emphasized personal relations, and in the Bahamian setting, that worked peculiarly well. I doubt that the franchise owners themselves recognize what a miracle they were in charge of, or how they might be upsetting the balance that they achieved by the closing of this particular outlet.

That is the most depressing thing I’ve read all week.