Open House at new Starbucks in 7 Corners on Wednesday, from 2-5, provides opportunity for community to express their rage and disappointment
author: SE PDX Beat Reporter
As reported here on portland indymedia, neighbors and business owners in the 7 Corners area of Southeast Portland have been strongly opposed to the opening of a new Starbucks store at SE Division & 20th. Issues have included concerns about traffic, rising rents, the deleterious effects of out-of-state corporations on local economies, litter, and the corporate homogenization of one of a legitimate, locally-centered neighborhood. Responses have included an above-ground campaign, positive proposals, talks with the owner and developers through the neighborhood association, testifying at City Council, and broken windows and monkey-wrenched equipment at the site.
To probably no one's surprise, none of these tactics actually stopped the Starbucks from moving in. The owner, local landlord Peter Perrin, had already signed a lease with the corporate coffee behemoth before the news got out, and neither could back out of the deal without risking a lawsuit for breach of contract. So it is now up to the neighbors to Shut This Starbucks Down.
The first chance will be an open house for the community on Wednesday, May 5, from 2-5 in the afternoon.
A very unfriendly (but legal) unwelcome from the community would make the managers of the store start to dread their jobs, which they should. It won't be a happy place to work, what with the constant protests and pranks that will inevitably ensue.
Check back at portland indymedia for more updates on this story, and report your own stories from the fight.
Can some one explain the hatred for Starbucks to me - this is not a flip remark it is a serious request for information. On general principles I don't frequent Starbucks and generally patronize small independant businesses over chains.
The No Starbucks Campaigners call anyone and everyone to come out and protest Wednesday from 2 until 6pm at the new location. Starbucks 'open house' is merely an attempt to appease a neighborhood that obviously opposes Starbucks locating in the 7 Corners. However, the only way to appease this neighborhood is to leave at once. There is no place for parasitic corporate invaders in our community. To open this store is a provocation, which will be met with continued resistance. We will not rest until Starbucks is gone. See you there. VIVA LA RESISTANCE!!!
I've never gone there though, maybe I would if I ever went in... That's a joke. I don't hate anything in this world; life is too short for hatred. I am disappointed by a culture that always promotes the corporate interest over the community interest. I live a few blocks away and I bike to work every day through that intersection and I do not appreciate the attempts at increasing traffic and congestion for yet another coffee shop (like there aren't a dozen within a 10 block radius). That being said, I'm not too worried about it, I think it's a poor location and has gotten enough negative press to keep people away. Let it be a money pit if that's what people want. But the neighborhoods of this city do deserve a say in the development that happens in their neighborhoods. We need to shift the values from emphasizing corporate expansion to building and respecting community. A lot of people through the h-word around these days as if it's not possible to differentiate between anger at having the neighborhood's voice ignored and some abstract notion of hatred.
Maybe I'm wrong but aren't people beginning to tire of the homogeny of corporate businesses? Is the desire to have each business look exactly the same really that strong? Maybe it's just me but I think a lot of people prefer non-corporate stores to corporate ones. And if starbucks thinks they're going to make any money from tourists in that location I'd say they were nuts. There are already 2 much better coffee shops within 2 blocks. I'll continue to go to those and we'll see what becomes of starbucks.
I might go to Starbucks during the openhouse to see what all the fuss is about. And I will take full advantage of any free coffee promotions they might be having. But coffee makes me jittery, and I'm an awfully clumsy person as it is, I might end up accidentally spilling something all over the floor, or counter, or chairs...I also hope that I don't get sick that day, because that could mean a real mess...
Living only six blocks from this travesty, I would like to note that I was notified that my rent will raise June 1st.
This is the first time in my life I have actually been moved to vandalize. I haven't, but it sure is tempting every time I walk by their numerous and huge windows.
I can't wait until Starbucks opens a shop close to where I live. I really don't think they're going to miss you folks that hate them. I think they are aiming a little higher than that.
Starbucks may not be the shining star of corporate good citizenship, but it isn't really that bad. There are much, much worse businesses that most of you totally ignore. It would be a greater gift to the world if you found a more worthy target of your venom and directed it there. Walmart would be a good place to begin. Walmart has done so much more damage to humanity, community economics, labor than Starbucks, but there it sits out on 82nd, bringing in thousands more customers and hurting thousands more people that Starbucks, while you will be hassling a little Starbucks store about its couple hundred customers a day.
what specifically is it about Starbucks coffee, pastries, customer service (or whatever it is that turns your crank) so much 'better' than or preferred to others?
(or is your anticipation simply that you don't have any coffee shops at all nearby where you live?)
Where on earth do you live coffee lover, if you don't live near a starbucks? I love coffee too but starbucks is the walmart of coffee pushers, semi functional but not really appealing, not to mention viral in behavior.
Hey! Check this out......If you don't like it, DON'T GO THERE! That'll show 'em. I just know they'll go broke because the few people who actually live in the neighborhood refuse to give them their custom. I'd be willing to bet that the CEO of Starbucks is losing sleep over what you think. Starbucks stock must be below ground level by now because of this......
I love Seattle's Best and all of the coffee shops of the Northwest. Peets can stay in California, tho. How many folks do you think Starbucks and Wal Mart employs? Hundreds, thousands?? They sell goods at a decent price and are kicking everyone elses collective ass. It's a consumers paradise. You can tell how much they're hated (and how far out of the mainstream your thinking is) by the number of cars in their parking lots at any given time.
Could it be you're hatred of them has something to do with them being non union? Now, I believe in unions. But a union is the result of bad management. Maybe the reason Wal Mart has avoided going union is because they have GOOD management. If there were enough disgruntled employees the unions would make inroads. That isn't happening.
Read the April 19 issue of National Review. There's a great article about Wal Mart. While you're at it read the entire issue. You could learn a few things.
By the way........does your mother know you hang out in places like this?
Addiction: an uncontrollable urge. setting aside the fact that coffee is an extremely addictive substance which affects your love for it more than you realize,
Community is very important to me. Ideally it brings support to all who live in it. It helps us feel like we are not alone in this crazy world. Your community is your lifeblood. When something that is hurtful to others enters my community, it destroys the sense of wellbeing I receive. I oppose Starbucks in seven corners because this is my community. Starbucks sells coffee grown by workers who get paid squat for their labor. They have the ability to make sure these farmers get paid more, but those profiting from Starbucks just don't care. And don't tell me Starbucks has fairtrade coffee. Stop for a moment and look up their definition of fairtrade. Not that very much gets sold anyway. Its not enough to just not buy their cruel coffee. Because of what they do, the very existence of Starbucks in my community must actively be opposed. And don't tell me that there are worse corporations. I know this, and I don't buy things from them either. I hate Walmart and I actively opposed it when I had one in my community before. Starbucks is still horrible. And its not enough for those in the community to just not buy their coffee. Because we know that it is the heavy traffic on Division, the people who don't live here, that will be customers for Starbucks, so they will stay in business. In addition to hurting coffee farmers, it is well documented that Starbucks is a predatory and anti-competitive corporation. They purposefully set up shop near local coffee shops and run them out of business thereby homogenizing coffee culture. And they are very effective at it. This is harmful to the community because it destroys the places where we choose to hang-out and network and build relationships and organize. The shutting down of local coffee shops is very similar to what happened during Prohibition. Prior to the 18th Amendment, taverns and saloons were the main location where union organizing happened. When alcohol became illegal, all the bars were shut down along with much union activity. Any place where laborers chose to congregate in order to organize was under constant threat of being raided by police under the guise of searching out speakeasies. If we lose our places to commune, we lose our ability to organize. If we lose our ability to organize we lose our identity. We become nothing but consumers, that is, strictly vehicles of consumption. I oppose Starbucks in my community and in every community. It is a symbol of globalization, corporatization, and gentrification. And I hope it burns to the ground.
Look!! Not everyone hates their local starbucks, yet they take great exception to the corporation and its' strategy. Why?...look beyond your neigborhood and see what they do globally...read Naomi Klein's book...if we consumers want this kind of merciless domination, then great, let the little clones pop up everwhere...maybe market demand will decide their future in favor of little guys...but just watch out what happens after they thoroughly saturate and control the market, retail and wholesale, then start reducing their overhead by cutting back service and quality
Response: Why I am Concerned about the new starbucks
I would in general never shop at Starbucks because I prefer to support local businesses. I appreciate that they caved to the pressure and started offering some fair trade coffee. I believe there is still a campaign because there is Bovine Growth Hormone in the milk they use (NWRAGE was working on it??) They have a business strategy of moving in where local coffeeshops already are and trying to run them out of business, by undercutting their costs (as a big chain they can do that as they have more resources), and when the local coffee shop is gone they can monopolize the business.
The corner they are moving into has been a hub of local community businesses. It is particular slap in the face that they choose this corner to move into. They are moving in across the street from the Red & Black cafe which is a worker owned collective. Regardless of the fact that most R & B customers won't go running across the street to Starbucks, the fact that the Starbucks managers decided to try to go after such a local sustainable business is distgusting to me.
Starbucks is not the greatest evil in this world. However, I don't want them on that corner, and I'm disgusted that they think they belong there.
you people are so clueless. starbucks puts people out of business? on what evidence? seems to me that the starbucks in this town exist, and support, vital business areas. hawthorne, ne 23rd, sellwood. the list goes on and on.
you have ZERO evidence that starbucks puts other folks out of business. Lumping Starbucks with Walmart is stupid.
you are just a small, vocal group of misanthropes who claim to speak for the "community." you ignore the many local businesspeople who have spoken *in favor* of Starbucks (incuding ClimbMax right next store).
You ignore that Starbucks does *not* pay lousy wages, provides benefits, and is generally a *good* corporate citizen.
In your hip, ironic, leftist critique, anything corporate is bad and anything local is good. How limited your vision. How impoverished your analysis.
I remember when Starbucks *was* a small coffee shop in Seattle. Nothing pisses off people like success, eh?
look all the places you named off are places that have been compleatly gentrified. - in other words when i was in 6th grade they were cool places to hang - now im in 11th and i notice its run by corperations - could this have always been, or could it be that since corperations move into our city it looses its flare?
but beyond that
look at the situation in SW right up on twilliger theyu moved a starbucks next to pappacinnos coffee- its really hurt the local company but then starbucks added one on Barbure BLVD less then a block away from the first one
i mean really its kinda getting funny... almost
we can all agree that its a tactic. so why not sell coffee from the Red and Black right outside of star bucks like directly outside
As I read through the comments of those who don't understand the angst about Starbucks, I can only hang my head and sigh very deeply.
Do you "brain-dead fucking status quo supporting kings of denial" ever go beyond the surface during your capitalist based analysis of any given situation????
The corporatization of communities is a huge problem and while Starbucks is only one of many, they are in many ways an icon for what is wrong with our country.
Fighting against Starbucks is much more than it appears to the "Lars Larson" simplistic thought processes that some have espoused here.
Perhaps a better understanding of "globalization" (I suggest the library) might help you expand your awareness of it's relationship to this particular issue and why it is so important?
Or maybe you might want to attend a public forum or lecture that outlines the facts and statistics pertaining to the American worker and the expansion of Corporate America's profit margin that is manifested through the deluge of service level jobs replacing living wage jobs?
You might want to even consider taking your "desperately needed education process" to another level by actually talking to "real people" all across the country who have been directly affected by the "Wal Martization" of communities all across the United States.
Or you could continue to remain ignorant and come on this site asking idiotic embarrassing questions that reveal your total lack of engagement with the trends that even a blind man could see.
Then you can continue to cling to your "liberal rants" about the acceptable rules of dissent and talk about the need for non-violent resistance while the nazis lead you to the shower.
"starfucks" purchased seattle's best coffee check this article i found from a google search
"link to www.forbes.com copy and paste
"starfucks" closed the seattle's best store at sw 6th and alder in down town portland it is now a jamaican(spelling?) coffee bar
("banana joe's ? i think it is) somethimg like that
one block away from sw 6th and alder at pioneer square is a "starfuck's"
one block away from sw 6th and alder at sw 6th and washington is a "starfuck's"
As 
