The official site of the Torch, the student-run newspaper at Glenbrook North High School.

Torch

The official site of the Torch, the student-run newspaper at Glenbrook North High School.

Torch

The official site of the Torch, the student-run newspaper at Glenbrook North High School.

Torch

Caribou Coffee brews up controversy

The bare Gay Straight Alliance Paint the Town window stands between two other clubs’ windows on Sept. 26 at Caribou Coffee. The coffee shop had received complaints about the GSA’s window and consented to wash off the flag GSA painted. Photo by Gabe Weininger.
The bare Gay Straight Alliance Paint the Town window stands between two other clubs’ windows on Sept. 26 at Caribou Coffee. The coffee shop had received complaints about the GSA’s window and consented to wash off the flag GSA painted. Photo by Gabe Weininger.

As he took his normal route home from work on the Wednesday of Homecoming Week, William Horine, sponsor of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA), noticed something unusual. Two days before, the GSA painted the middle set of windows at Caribou Coffee as a part of the school’s Paint the Town tradition, in which school clubs and organizations paint the windows of businesses in downtown Northbrook. But when Horine drove by, the window painted by the GSA had been washed off.

While three clubs painted windows at Caribou Coffee, only the GSA’s painting was initially removed. Horine said he “tried to withhold judgement” about the painting’s removal until he was properly informed of the reasoning. Moments after walking through the front door of his Northbrook home, Horine received a call from Michael Tarjan, dean of student activities, saying he had received a message from the store manager of the local Caribou Coffee. The store manager asked not to be named to keep “personalities out of the situation.”

“[The store manager’s] message said that he had gotten complaints from customers,” said Horine. “He used plural. I don’t know how many that means, [or] who found it offensive. And in response he, on his own initiative, went out and washed it off.”

The store manager said he received “more than a handful of complaints,” both in person and via e-mail, but would not state a specific number.

The store manager commented that the divide between the community on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues is unfortunate and he wants to move on by embracing these issues.

The day after the removal of the GSA painting, the painted windows of the other two clubs were also washed down. Cleanup for Paint the Town was scheduled for the following Sunday.

According to Tarjan, the businesses are asked if the school’s clubs may paint their windows but the names of the clubs are not specified to each business.

GSA President Emily Komie expressed her shock at the removal of the painting and said her and her friends initially stopped going to the store.

“[The early removal] was never meant to hurt anybody at any point,” said the store manager. “[I] really just want to do whatever we can to help the community to give back to where it’s not the focus of every community conversation.”

Meike Fonteyn, Caribou Coffee district manager, said the store manager made a “reactive decision” to take down the painting without truly understanding what the window represented.

“Caribou is a company that believes in inclusivity,” said Fonteyn. “And so this was immediately incredibly disheartening. One of the goals of Caribou is to be accepting of everybody…We’re incredibly sorry that this occurred.”

When Fonteyn was notified of the incident, she said she immediately reached out to the school and the GSA to help resolve the issue.

On Oct. 17, Fonteyn and the GSA coordinated an event inside of the local Caribou Coffee shop as a formal apology and a means to make the community feel welcome there. Twelve people attended the hour-long event, including Komie, four other GSA members, Horine, Tarjan and Fonteyn. Although the discussion was open to all members of the community, no additional students or Northbrook residents attended aside from Komie’s parents.

Komie, who said the GSA wants to be on “good terms” with Caribou, formed a statement with the store’s management at the meeting to update the community and bring people back to Caribou Coffee by partnering for future events. Komie does not want to “dwell on the negatives,” and she now continues to shop and study at Caribou Coffee, albeit less frequently.

Horine said that although many responses from the local community have shown a “tremendous amount of thoughtfulness and intelligence,” he hopes the community can grow in terms of respect and toleration.

“I think sometimes people think maybe school climate issues are over, we’ve kind of gotten past that,” said Horine. “You know what? Every year we learn that we’re not past it, and we need to keep the conversation going. We need to keep understanding each other and respecting each other.”

Looking back, Horine said he would not do anything differently in terms of the club’s response of working together with Caribou to move forward. He said what he will remember most is the Northbrook community stepping up “almost universally in the right way” in terms of the comments made on both social media and in person by supporting GSA in a nondestructive way.

“I don’t know how people feel about the issues surrounding gay rights out there, but the club exists for a reason, and I think that it’s an important reason,” said Horine. “And to see the community respond, and in many cases very intelligently and very knowledgeably about what this means to students, I thought was really, really gratifying.”