They opened a brand new Starbucks adjacent to Marist College (Poughkeepsie, NY).  It is huge, and hugely busy. The furniture is uncommonly elegant (walnut table tops and walnut chairs--or an excellent facsimile of walnut).  Most of the patrons were  18 to 22 year old students.

The furniture finish had almost not coating thickness.  I can't imagine what finish it is (or if it will stand up to the multiple daily cleaning with the disinfecting spray that they use. 

But, in the restrooms they have sharps receptacles!   I have never seen that at any restaurant or even at any public-available restrooms.  Perhaps this is a comment on the students at Marist.

Ah, I did not think about diabetes.  I was thinking drug addicts.

A 30% increase in cases, most in younger adults.

https://www.jdrf.org/blog/2020/02/18/more-people-being-diagnosed-type-1-diabetes/

This is a really sad state of affairs.  There are certain behaviors that I'm quite intolerant of, and this is one. 

This is, according to another article I just read online, an unintended consequence of Starbucks "open bathroom" policy.  Starbucks allows access to their bathrooms for non-customers. 

They are, from my personal observation, reluctant to force the homeless out into the cold even if they are not buying anything.  One store manager would offer free coffee to those homeless, but well-behaved, individuals.  A show of compassion, but perhaps contributing to the needle problem.

I might argue that having sharps containers reduces the needle problem, not contributes to it.

Seth will be by any minute to shut this down- but before that happens, it's good to remember that social problems rarely respond to the "easy and obvious" solutions.  And the American healthcare system is ALWAYS collateral damage- it's more expensive to do emergency life-saving care to someone who's been using dirty needles (and will never pay the bill) than it is to just help them use drugs less dangerously.  This irritates a lot of people, but it's not being done out of stupidity.