A Starbucks spokesperson has confirmed to 14850 Magazine that the company is closing its College Avenue café in Collegetown on Friday, June 10th. The café sits on one of Ithaca’s busiest and most heavily traveled commercial corners.

Staff at all three Ithaca locations overwhelmingly voted to unionize in votes held this spring, and a Starbucks barista and union organizer who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the company said the College Avenue staff was the most vocal group in the unionizing effort.

Over 100 Starbucks locations in all have voted to unionize since “Starbucks partners (employees) began the unionization movement in August of last year when 50 partners signed a letter to former Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson announcing their intention to unionize and asking him to sign the Fair Elections,” the Tompkins County Workers Center said in a statement in April.

Related: Staff at all three Ithaca Starbucks cafes overwhelmingly vote to unionize

Ithaca has had two standalone Starbucks cafés since 2005, when they opened on busy corners in Downtown Ithaca and Collegetown, as well as partner locations inside Barnes & Noble in Ithaca’s Southwest and Target at the Shops at Ithaca Mall, and some cafés on the Cornell campus also serve Starbucks coffee, but aren’t operated by the company. But Ithaca’s very first drive-through Starbucks location opened in January.

Related: Ithaca’s first drive-through Starbucks is opening in Threshold Plaza

The Collegetown café closed briefly in April when a clogged grease trap overflowed, managers told staff they couldn’t close despite the potential health hazard, and baristas walked out in protest. The Starbucks spokesperson told 14850 Magazine this weekend that the permanent closure of the location “has nothing to do with the grease trap.”

Another Starbucks representative who did not wish to be quoted reached out after this article was published to say that the Starbucks spokesperson who said the grease trap was not a factor was “not correct.”

That second representative says “The store has experienced facilities issues, in addition to time and attendance and staffing issues that made it difficult to operate successfully.” Staff say the “staffing issues” can largely be attributed to the company cutting store hours.

An e-mail shared with 14850 Magazine that’s apparently from Littler Mendelson P.C., a labor law firm that represents Starbucks in negotiations with staff and union organizers, says “As you know, there have been many issues with regard to the condition of the store (e.g., the grease trap) and it does not make sense to further operate the store. Trying to operate in that store is certainly not providing the level of partner experience you deserve or the level of customer experience our customers expect.”

That e-mail, which was sent by Littler’s Alan I. Model to a union organizer at the College Avenue location last Friday shortly before Starbucks officially told staff the location was closing, said “This email is to let you know that today Starbucks will inform the College Ave. partners that it intends to permanently close the College Ave. store for business reasons.” Model went on to say, “We’d like to engage in bargaining with Workers United as soon as possible to discuss the impact of the store’s closing on its partners.” Mr. Model did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Since Starbucks partners were told late last week that the Collegetown café was closing, staff asking whether their jobs with the company were secure were told by managers that “it’s above their pay grade to say whether staff will be able to transfer” to another location, the local barista tells us. A district manager was apparently not responding to texts from staff asking if they’d be able to transfer to another store this week.

The Starbucks spokesperson said in a prepared statement she shared with us that, “Our goal is to ensure that every partner is supported in their individual situation, and we have immediate opportunities available in the market,” and tells us that “partners will be accommodated at one of the two other stores in Ithaca, which are both within a mile of the College Avenue location.” (The Threshold Plaza café is actually about two miles away from the Collegetown location.)

“We open and close stores as a regular part of our operations,” the Starbucks spokesperson said in the prepared statement. “Our local, regional, and national leaders have been working with humility, deep care, and urgency to create the kind of store environment that partners and customers expect of Starbucks.”

Staff shifts have seemed to be cut since this spring’s unionization vote, baristas say, with café hours cut to 7am-2pm because there aren’t enough shift supervisors to cover longer hours. Staff are being assigned four to twelve hours per week — not enough to afford groceries and gas, and not enough to be eligible for healthcare benefits.

“You need to work a minimum of 20 hours to retain your benefits at Starbucks,” a local café employee tells us. “A lot of partners from every store in Ithaca have been experiencing dwindling hours. We don’t get to decide whether they drop us below 20, so our benefits are literally at their mercy.”

Assemblymember Anna Kelles is encouraging the community to support local Starbucks union organizers via a fundraiser to help staff get to the Labor Notes Conference. “Funds will be used to offset registration, travel, lodging, and meal costs,” says a local fundraiser organizer. “Any leftover funds will go to the Ithaca SBWU strike fund.” As of this writing, the GoFundMe had raised $1,777 of a target $5,000 in four days.

“This is what it looks like when we gut anti-trust laws and let huge consolidated corporations take over the service industry,” Dr. Kelles told 14850 Magazine on Monday morning. “The blatant union-busting behavior displayed by Starbucks is unconscionable and unacceptable. This is a busy and well-trafficked coffee shop 12 months a year.”

The College Avenue location is slated to close at the end of the day on Friday, June 10th. Currently, the café is open 7am-2pm.

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