Canadian Marketing Blog

Close call Tim Hortons.....

Last week you may have heard about a Tim Hortons location in Etobicoke which was quick to ban local students from drinking coffee inside the restaurant between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays. Tim Hortons would happily sell them their coffee, but the coffee was to be consumed off the restaurant premises.

It seems the local patrons complained about the language and rowdiness of the students and just wanted to drink their coffee in peace. Many of the patrons interviewed were clearly around the retirement age and were fed up with the actions of the students day in and day out.

In a few hours the story had changed. Apparently the principal of the school met with the management at this Tim Hortons location and came to an agreement on how the issue would be managed. The ban was over as quickly as it came about.

This was clearly the actions of the management of this Time Hortons location and not that of the head office.

The students had a taste of what discrimination feels like when action was taken against them as a result of the behaviour of a few. This is a very slippery slope and an all-out ban is not the way to treat the situation.

Tim Hortons is fortunate that this situation resolved itself quickly. There are hundreds of thousands of student Customers in the city and across the Country. I can only assume that there are millions of dollars spent by these students at Tim Hortons each year. Students will remember a national coffee shop that banned people (just like them) from using their establishment. Lost future sales (in the years to come) could have a very big impact on the organization. These students will grow up one day, and will be the Customers that Tim Hortons desperately wants to attract.

The bad press is not worth it. Tim Hortons may want to buy the principal of the school a coffee two for saving them from potential lost future sales.

The right approach is to ban the few that cause the problems. Let the rest enjoy the offerings of your business. Any blanket rules you put in front of your Customers will hurt your business in the long run.

Or would Tim Hortons have been remembered as the store that stood up for the very Canadian values of good behaviour and politeness whilst supporting its core customers who want to drink their coffee in peace?

As it stands, Tim Hortons has come out of this rather well. It looks like a company that has corporate values and that will support its unassuming customers, and the compromise with the school serves to make it look reasonable and decent, rather than curmudgeonly!

I agree with Dan. I do not want to sit and listen to crap and I am even close to retirement. Also…I believe the store in question did approach the school before the ban to discuss options … when nothing changed the store was forced to take action.

I agree that banning every child was maybe a bit much … however, it did send a strong message to the kids and the school.

Ban the students responsible / Zero Tolerance

Wow. I'm suprised by these comments. You may not want to sit and listen to what you perceive as "crap". But the students have as much right to be in a public place as you do as long as they weren't breaking the law. White noise is not a crime.

Rather interesting how we're doing essays about this in class... no matter.

Being a student (And a horrible caffiene addict) myself, I was rather stunned upon hearing this. Sure, the ban was quickly lifted but the point still stands - some adults will come there and be rude, so will some students. Banning them because we aren't covered by the code of human rights (Being minors) and because we're still 'children' is as bad of discrimation as segregating blacks from whites in my opinion.

What many of you do not realize is that this was not a single incident. These students had been coming in for weeks causing issues within the store and with the customers.

What the prinicpal did was not to appease TH but to scold the high school students who were acting more like elementary aged students. He had to go to every class explaining how to behave in public and then go to the store and monitor the students behaviour.

If the students want to be treated as adults - its about damn time they started acting like it!