Samantha Buck, and her family (above) came from Astoria for the Friday morning August 16th protest at Pioneer Square Starbucks. From 7am to 9am, some 15 people handed out flyers, talked to people about the issue, and asked them to sign petitions.
Starbucks claims that there will be confusion, however, the logos, and locations, and inside appearance are not even close. This is clearly another example of out of control corporate greed.
This issue is an easy sell. Over 1000 flyers were handed out, and the great majority of the people who took them, both read them, and sympathised with Sam. Many people were outraged by the bullying strongarm tactics of Starbucks as they try to put a small business owner out of business.
It is a clear message to Starbucks. LEAVE SAM ALONE read the signs.
Channel 6 and 8 were both at the protest. Channel 8 interviewed quite a few people and was there for a couple hours. The reporter said the responses from people were favorable, though he was not sure how many people would stop drinking Starbucks coffee. However, at least 4 people said they were not going to drink Starbucks coffee anymore because of this issue, and they were directed to other nearby coffee places. Likewise, many others avoided going to Starbucks that morning, though made no promise about the future.
There were a couple petitions, which will be sent to Starbucks. There were over 100 signatures collected on just this one short action.
People were surprisingly interested in the story, and quite few of the 1000 flyers were asked for by passersby who had heard of the story. Many people expressed very strong frustration with Starbucks. It is a classic case of the nasty bully, picking on the smaller person. Nobody likes a company that does that.
The Bucks bought their coffee elsewhere.
Everyone felt pleased with the mornings efforts. They said it was successful and were enthused for further action.
