Starbucks shuttered near Hollywood Walk of Fame plagued by rampant crime

A Starbucks near the famed Hollywood Walk of Fame – one of 16 shuttered nationwide by the coffee c🍸hain – went dark last week because of  “challenging incidents that make it unsafe to continue to operate,” the company said, according to published reports.

The cafe on Hollywood Blvd. and Vine St. was among six locations in Los Angeles closed at the end of July after the chain claimed that high crime, homelessness and tense encounters between st🎀affers and mentally ill people forced its hand.

Sara Blair, a Hollywood resident, said that particular Starbuck✤s site was often hit with vandalism, . Passersby would notice windows being smashed in and boarded up, the Times reported.

She also told the Times that she once noticed a large contingent of police officers surrounding the cafe after someone entered with a weapon in what was later determined to be a “hostage situation.” 

A Starbucks spokesperson told The Post on Thursday that the Seattle-based chain does✃ not have any record of there being a hostage situation🅠 at the site.

The Post reached out to the Los Angeles Police Department seeking more informaಌtion.

Aside from the LA locations, Starbucks also shut down six stores in Seattle; two in Portlan🐠d, Ore.; and one l𝔍ocation each in Washington, DC, and Philadelphia.

The company said that it was receivingও feedback ꧑from store managers who were struggling to cope with drug users occupying the bathrooms as well as rowdy customers who would commit crimes such as theft and assault.

But union representatives said that two of the Seattle locations that were shuttered were stores where 𝓰the employees were engaged in organized labor activities — and that the company was using crime as a pretext to retaliate against them.

Howard Schultz, the interim CEO of Starbucks, said earlier this summe💙r that he was giving store managers discretion to alter the chain’s “open bathroom” policy due to mounting concerns over public safety.

In 2018, Starbucks allowed non-customers to use i🥃ts bathrooms after two black men who were sitting inside a coffee shop in Philadelphia without having ordered anything were arrested.