Two Starbucks on Berkeley Street were fined over £160,000 on Wednesday (10 August) after repeatedly leaving rubbish bags on a busy central London pavement.
Since April 2015 both stores and Starbucks head office ignored regular warnings from Westminster City Council to stop putting rubbish bags on the street outside of normal collection times.
They also paid seven of eleven £80 fixed penalty notices, with the first issued in 2011.
However, bags continued to be left on the street for hours, cluttering the pavement and resulting in rubbish spilling out onto the pavement.
Starbucks pleaded guilty at Westminster Magistrates Court to four waste offences and were fined £40,000 for each.
Cllr Nickie Aiken, Westminster City Council cabinet member for licensing and public protection, said: “Starbucks have shown a complete disregard for local residents and visitors to this historic part of Westminster.
“On a regular basis Starbucks dumped their rubbish straight onto the pavement rather than following very simple collection schedules.
“This sentence proves that every business has a responsibility to keep our streets clean and tidy, regardless of the size of the company”.
Speaking at Westminster Magistrates court, District Judge Coleman said that Starbucks had acted in a “deliberate” manner, ignoring complaints from resident’s associations and numerous warnings from Westminster City Council.
She did not accept the mitigation submitted by Starbucks that head office hadn’t been aware at the appropriate times due to internal procedures.
Westminster City Council had written to Starbucks head office on a number of occasions to raise the issue.
Coleman added that there was a “history of non-compliance” from Starbucks and noted the “prestigious” location and impact on the “local amenity”.
There are two regular collections in Berkeley Street at 0700 and 1800, .
Businesses are expected to put rubbish out no more than 30 minutes prior to the collection time and waste should stay on the street for no more than two hours.
However, rubbish was seen dumped on the streets just after midday on a number of occasions and waste bags were observed spilling and leaking onto the public highway.
Rubbish was also seen left out through the night in what is one of Westminster’s busiest night-time economy hotspots.
Cllr Melvyn Caplan, Westminster City Council cabinet member for city management, said: “Keeping Westminster’s streets clean is a busy job which requires a huge amount of effort from council workers, residents and businesses.
“Hundreds of thousands of people from all around the world visit Westminster every day. A lot of them are likely to stop and enjoy a coffee, but not many of them want to pick their way through piles of rubbish.”
