I checked out this press conference held near the original Starbuck's in Pike Place Market at Victor Steinbrueck Park. Just a handful of folks, including a number of police officers, and a whole lot of reporters/photographers to see the heads of Million Moms March, Washington Ceasefire and Brady Campaign announce their boycott of Starbuck's. And what do you know? I made it into a video on the PI Blog this week!
click here to see me moving rather efficiently in the background starting at the 54-second mark.
Unlike Peet's Coffee and California Pizza Kitchen, Starbuck's has said that they will allow customers to openly carry firearms at their cafes. You have to pity the poor barista who doesn't get that coffee order just right. Why would anyone want to openly carry a gun into a restaurant or cafe? It makes no sense to me.
Thank you Starbucks
5 comments:
I don't know what they are thinking. They're trying not to offend a thin-skinned crowd that lives to be offended. How can Starbucks possibly accept this image of their stores? Congrats on your new stardom!
The hypocrisy of SB has been growing. In '03 they took a blues cd off the shelf, for one of their crazy reasons.It was a great cd from Hear but, they found one song offensive (huh?).
But this gun thing, shocking ; (
this weekend when i was in the dc area, there was an action at a starbuck's in alexandria virginia. was so shocked when I learned starbucks allows customers to bring in guns.
this insane policy only reinforces my longstanding boycott of sb
fun to see you weaving around snapping away!! (the red bag helped)
It's impossible for me to imagine people can relax themselves with coffee in the place where they have to see guns.
I wrote to them and actually heard back. In short, they ain't budging:
THEY WRITE: "We comply with local laws and statutes in all the communities we serve. In this case, 43 of the 50 U.S. states have open carry weapon laws...The political, policy and legal debates around these issues belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores..."
IT MEANS: 80% of the states may be crazy, but what are you going to do other than wring your hands?
THEY WROTE: "Were we to adopt a policy different from local laws allowing open carry, we would be forced to require our partners to ask law abiding customers to leave our stores, putting our partners in an unfair and potentially unsafe position...As the public debate continues, we are asking all interested parties to refrain from putting Starbucks or our partners into the middle of this divisive issue..."
IT MEANS: We're only thinking of the people we pay $7 an hour. For their sakes, don't ask us to do anything about this.
THEY WROTE: "We believe that supporting local laws is the right way for us to ensure a safe environment for both partners and customers..."
IT MEANS: Not only will Starbucks remain silent on this -- including taking a corporate position that open carry laws are a bad idea -- as a corporate entity it is divorced from logic.
THEY WROTE: "We appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective."
IT MEANS: Nothing. They already told me several times in their email to shut up and drink my coffee.
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