No one denies, and no one quite says explicitly,

that the two young black gentlemen recently arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks were offered service, which they declined, while continuing to occupy seating reserved for paying customers (and even asking to use the restroom).  Am I missing something?  When I go into a Starbucks, as I like sometimes to do, I quickly get into the Order Line and order a triple-shot venti (2%) latte with a (big) shot of hazlenut, just so's I may sit in one of their comfy little café chairs and watch the world go by--always a rewarding and interesting pastime at Starbucks.  I certainly wouldn't sit down before I'd bought my latte.  Nor would anyone else that I know.  So what's up with these two colored gentlemen from Philadelphia?  Why ever would they think that they could sit at a table in a Starbucks without first purchasing something?   [And if they didn't purchase something, being thrown out, and if they resisted being thrown out, arrested?]  Is Philadelphia full of eating or drinking establishments where people can just sit at the tables without purchasing anything?

Could it be that the two young colored gentleman--Philadelphians--don't know how business is conducted in a Starbucks (which is, after all, provenient from Seattle, and is in many ways. in its dealing with customers, imbued with a higher standard of courtesy and decorum, such as prevails in the Pacific Northwest, than black Philadelphians would be used to)?  Or are they couthless niggers incapable of going about their business anywhere in a civilized manner?  Their request to use the restroom seems to argue the latter.