‘Should close the stores’: Starbucks is causing a LOT of grief in Cork

Starbucks, the multinational coffee retailer is causing a lot of controversy in Cork city at the moment. 

The coffee shop recently opened three new stores across Cork on St Patrick's Street, Princess Street and Emmet Place.

They were all opened in commercial units which were previously retail shops, and the planning authority has since said that the company should have applied for planning permission to change the use of the stores before it opened. 

The decision comes five months after a planning dispute between Cork County Council and Starbucks was referred to An Bord Pleanála.

The County Council claimed that Starbucks should have changed the use of premises from a retail premises, while the coffee shop argued that most people take away their drinks, and thus the operation in nature is retail.

However, An Bord Pleanála has taken the council's side, and said that in all three cases “the scale, nature and layout of the coffee shop is more akin to a restaurant use which is expressly excluded from the definition of ‘shop’.”

Sorry, Starbucks. You lost out on this one.