26 replies to this topic

[church]

how is starbucks to blame for any of this? don't they treat their employees well, give to charity, run a pretty respectable organization, show local artists work? they're not bullying out businesses to take their land. they're taking land that comes up for lease. they have a good product. why begrudge someone for taking advantage of the american way? if you started a business and it kept growing, and you weren't hurting anybody, would you stop?

[weener]

If you love capitalism so much, why don't you marry it?

[raubhimself]

Sonic Youth is putting out some sort of album through Starbucks, so... I don't know what to think anymore.

[allisonorphan]

how is starbucks to blame for any of this? don't they treat their employees well, give to charity, run a pretty respectable organization, show local artists work? they're not bullying out businesses to take their land. they're taking land that comes up for lease. they have a good product. why begrudge someone for taking advantage of the american way? if you started a business and it kept growing, and you weren't hurting anybody, would you stop?

starbucks provides support, both monetary and in kind for several arts organazations.

its funny cause we artists at 515arts are in need of like 7,000 more dollars for printing/mailing costs for our full color catalog of our artists and past /guest artists. we have been researching funding and while ideally, we would like to keep it a community effort, we would glady welcome a hefty chunk from starbucks. we all work full time and create art on top of that. any time spent fundraising or meeting about fundraising is done on what little free time we have left. if a big company like starbucks/target/wells fargo (a big sponsor of the eyelounge full color catalog) was willing to alleviate our time from doing a more "door to door" fundraising approach, we would really welcome that help........

i work at an independent restaurant part time and we get hit up ALL the time for fundraising. even if there is a cause that we would like to support, it is hard to budget even a small amount...especially during the summer months.

if a company who is financially successful is willing to provide support for a cause...is that a bad thing? i would like to think if i had oodles of money i would be able to provide artists and groups the opportunity to do something great/awesome/beneficial/rewarding.

i dunno. there are pros and cons to this issue..........

[Jacki O.]

how is starbucks to blame for any of this? don't they treat their employees well, give to charity, run a pretty respectable organization, show local artists work? they're not bullying out businesses to take their land. they're taking land that comes up for lease. they have a good product. why begrudge someone for taking advantage of the american way? if you started a business and it kept growing, and you weren't hurting anybody, would you stop?

hells no! i would work hard to put a Jacki O. shop on every major corner of the world! Everywhere a new store of mine opened up i would look at what similar local stores are doing to get customers such as having bands play, showing local artwork, hosting events, etc. and i would copy that. Then i would take all the money i make from my other stores in other cities and from the new customers i got from using the above tactics and buy advertising like on buses, billboards, tv commercials, radio commercials, and in print. I would sponsor marathons and charity balls.
Then i would take all the money i made from that advertising and sink it into new stores in the same towns so i would have 2 or even 3 Jacki O. stores on every street corner.
Then after the local competition has gone out of business i would open even more stores to cater to whatever customers were left that went to the local places, who now need a place to spend their hard earned money at. After getting all that money i would buy a baseball stadium or something big and having to do with sports. To help even further with advertising. THEN i can continue building new stores until my old stores have to compete with my new stores and my multi-billion dollar company internally combusts.

Oh and i would burn my coffeebeans, put out crappy music on my record label, and use products derived from slavery, torture, governmental overthrow, and human rights violations.

and i would buy my parents a nice house with a pool.

[eraser]

what this really is about is the uneasy relationship between art and commerce.

Yep.

While the term "sellout" is so overused, too easily applied, and often negligent of all the gray area in these kind of issues, it's important for artists, performers, venues, organizations, and the like to be aware of what they're getting into, what they're actually supporting or promoting, and their own going price & the subsequent tradeoffs / effects. Communicating with folks on these issues, I think, is one of the best ways to get to that point.

by the way, those other cities you mentioned didn't appear out of nowhere. they developed because of the people who live there ...

Yeah, there are always these issues going on everywhere.

The one thing that Phoenix's civic & business leadership often overlooks is that the cities that are considered great cities to visit & live in (Chicago, NYC, Boston, Austin, etc.) is that such a good amount of what's there in those cities is due to organic growth with a dash of careful planning and consideration for the public good.

The great businesses, public spaces, gathering places, and attractions that other cities have, that make it attractive & easy to walk down their streets and be amongst other people, have come about because those cities, instead of sprawling, made do with the space they started out with before growing outward and by not forcing it all at once down people's throats.

The projects that have failed (like the Arizona Center) and that will fail (whatever soulless monstrosity replaces Patriots Park Square) in Phoenix are the exact opposite. Whereas those other cities have been around a lot longer than Phoenix which has given them the time needed to grow, evolve, and develop, Phoenix wants to cram them down your throat in one big lump sum. As Jacki mentioned, instead of building on what's already in downtown (and there's some amazing shit going down), they jump on the bandwagon that will line their pockets more easily. By forcefully shitblossoming an instant mall in the middle of downtown, city leaders can more easily control and profit from whatever goes on within it, versus having to actually hear and respond to the concerns of a community of local & independent businesses.

how is starbucks to blame for any of this? don't they treat their employees well, give to charity, run a pretty respectable organization, show local artists work? they're not bullying out businesses to take their land. they're taking land that comes up for lease. they have a good product. why begrudge someone for taking advantage of the american way? if you started a business and it kept growing, and you weren't hurting anybody, would you stop?

I don't know that I want to get too deep into parsing out blame for all of the issues we're discussing and even if I did, I'm sure that there's stuff that Starbucks is not to blame for, or at least, only plays a small part of.

Re: Starbucks' Treatment of Employees

Yes, Starbucks has a really good reputation for how well they treat their employees. In fact, they offer full health / vision /dental insurance, plus stock options and 401K for part-time employees. I wouldn't begrudge anyone for working at Starbucks. Starbucks seems like it should be a model for other multibillion companies in how it treats its workers.

That said, there have been different labor disputes and issues that have popped up (as there are bound to be in such a gigantic company) and they're apparently not that thrilled when their workers organize and join a union.

Re: Starbucks Giving to Charity

I personally have no idea.

I imagine that they do give to charity just like most like corporations. That's not meant to diminish the good that their money does, but also realize that part of corporate donations to charity can be chalked up to public relations and not wanting their money sitting around to get taxed. Companies can move that money to a good cause and write it off on their taxes.

As a sidenote, Pablo Escobar, the most vicious and successful drug kingpin that ever lived was revered and loved in Columbia for all that he did for children and the poor folks in his city. The dude even had churches built. Money well-directed can do some great things, but that doesn't necessarily redeem how that money was gained.

Re: Starbucks Showing Local Artists' Work

I have no idea.

Re: Starbucks Having a Good Product

I'm not much of a coffee drinker anyway and save for visiting a Starbucks for the first time in 1997 on a trip to Boston (I had never heard of 'em) and shooting a Phoenix Neutrino scene inside one a few months ago, I've pretty much never been in one.

People seem to like 'em, though, while others say that they overroast their beans. Being a non-coffeedrinker, I have no idea what that means.

Re: Running A Respectable Organization / Not Hurting Anybody

I don't know about that.

Apparently, there were some issues about how and where they were getting their beans, and what they were paying farmers and the like. While some of those issues remain, I guess that Starbucks is a lot better now at being aware of their influence in the coffeebean market and their own corporate responsibility. (http://seattletimes....ffeeside20.html)

"if you started a business and it kept growing, and you weren't hurting anybody, would you stop?"

You're making it seem like Starbucks is just an old timer who runs the town's general store who's doing what he loves, able to make a living from it, and it's doing so well that, aw shucks, he should just open up another one.

Starbucks' growth strategy is a well-orchestrated plan, frighteningly executed with the ravenous ferocity of a shark and the near-unstoppableness of kudzu. They don't give a fuck if they kill off local & independent businesses. That, to me, is the opposite of not hurting anybody.

As far as how Starbucks affects / hurts the local economy:

http://www.everythin...node_id=1535254

Starbucks eliminates competition through buy-outs, "cluster bombing" tactics, and market cannibalization. The Ocean Beach Grassroots Organization, in support of the local merchants of Ocean Beach, declares as part of a boycott that, "Starbucks employs unfair tactics against local coffee shops. If Starbucks finds a successful coffee establishment they build one or more locations to take their business. They lease buildings to keep out competition, send agents around to take notes and pictures (as we have witnessed in Ocean Beach)" (obgo.org). Ocean Beach is a community located in San Diego, California. It has recently been the site of numerous protests against the Starbucks Corporation's attempt to open franchises there. The Ocean Beach planning board is working on a ban called Proposition A that bans "Formula Retail" restaurants and stores from encroaching on Ocean Beach. In Japan, Kinzo Niwa, managing director of Pokka Corp., which runs the Cafe de Crie chain, a rival of Starbucks, explains, "Our sales don't drop even if Starbucks opens a shop near ours, but if we simultaneously apply to a landlord to rent space in the same building, the landlord chooses our opponent" (The Japan Times). Starbucks's market-entry strategy involves first finding a market's leading independent coffee shop, and then going to the landlord of that coffee shop and buying the lease out from under them, replacing the shop with a Starbucks. As is common in Ocean Beach and Japan, the existing coffee shop is forced to move or go out of business. If Starbucks cannot buy the lease, Starbucks will open several franchises around the shop (nearly one on each corner) and heavily promote to draw the crowd. This begins a "cluster bombing" campaign where Starbucks opens so many franchises in one area that they become unsustainable. After driving out independently owned coffee shops, the Starbucks franchises then have to start competing with themselves, cannibalizing each other's sales. Starbucks, the parent company, is basically promoting Darwinism as their business model, a business model that is becoming unbeatable. In Starbucks's 2002 10-K Report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it is reported, "As a result of its expansion strategy of clustering stores in existing markets, Starbucks has experienced a certain level of cannibalization of sales of existing stores by new stores as store concentration has increased." Despite this cannibalization, Starbucks's net revenue growth increased 24% that year.

These business practices leverage the Starbucks Corporation's capital and brand recognition in order to eliminate the competition, i.e. small coffee shops without the resources to hold off such aggressive advances. This effectively homogenizes the coffee shop market.

While the whole of that article is admittedly slanted against Starbucks, the issues highlighted are corroborated by Starbucks' Wikipedia entry (even if the buyouts mentioned here are more on the industry level rather than just on the local level):

http://en.wikipedia....arbucks#History

A little less slanted and more business-oriented is this article:

http://www.lohud.com...1282/CUSTOM0201

“I can’t say which client we’re scouting for today,” he repeats. “But in many parts of Manhattan we’ve opened multiple Starbucks in the same building. Grand Central Terminal is the perfect example. We have two locations there. But could we have three or four? Certainly.” Market saturation, he explains, is a relative term. If you’ve got enough population density—as is often the case in Manhattan and even Bronxville—there’s no reason you can’t fit two Starbucks on the same street. And after all, isn’t that the strategy in Monopoly, too? Pick the best property, and keep building as many houses as you can manage.

and

“Listen, this kind of backlash happens every time there’s a new growth sector in retail. In the late ’80s it was video stores, in the ’90s it was coffee, and now it’s drug stores and banks. These days, you’ll see drug stores open up multiple locations just to keep competitors out of the market.”

While he was specifically referencing drug stores in that above quote, that still seems to be a strategy that Starbucks has clung to.

That doesn't even touch the issues of having national chain businesses overrunning, oversaturating, or dominating the places where people gather. That's fine if you want to live in Disneyland's Main Street USA where everything is fakely authentic, but I know it's not the place I want to live.

[ScarS1k]

i fucking hate fourbucks
i dont understand why people go there to drink coffee or sit outside on a table while typing their next novel or movie script on a laptop while people walk by saying
"OH LOOK AT THAT DUDE, HES PROBABLY TYPING UP A NEW NOVEL"
just go to dunkin donuts and get cheaper coffee
or circle k folks
or better yet, make your own fucking coffee at home, you will save a hella lot more money,
also, fourbucks has drivethrus???? ARE YOU KIDDING? DRIVE THRU just for coffee?
so sad....

[nardicles]

One problem: "There is so much that doesn't happen here in the summer," says boss Matt Lehrman. But when life gives you lemons, you're supposed to make lemonade. Or, in this case, Tazo Passion Shaken Iced Tea & Lemonade.

i used to think these guys were cool, but then again, I once owned an 45 by The Archies

Is there a reason they aren't doing these events at LUX, Willow House, Mama Java, and any of the 300 other local places they could be?


I should have stayed in bed today.
JRC--OWL

well one give away is that this came from the worst newspaper in az...the Re-Pube-Lick...

lol
dan.
that made me laugh.
Re-Pube-Lick
lol

[nardicles]

thanks eraser et al.
this has been rather informative.

[dharma_bum]

so let's all give up and move somewhere else. i say we invade Sun City!

i just saw morrissey there. it's the new hip 'burb.

btw .. i didn't mean to say 'it's hopeless', you gotta fight the good fight and find some balance somewhere. I think unfortunately phoenix suffers from leadership who are stuck in an old way of thinking about cities --- and on top of that, they cater to business, not citizens.

anyway .. back to starbucks and showup ..

what really is working against the affordable housing is the real estate market. i mean, since the housing explosion 2 years ago, nothing has or will be the same again. everything basically doubled in price. even though it is a buyers market right now, i don't see the prices coming down to much from what they were 6 months to a year ago. not to belittle the garfield district but even the housing there is out of reach for a lot of working class folk.

[mothrock]

Starbucks coffee is pretty horrible. Most people wouldn't know that unless they've actually had good coffee. Starbucks relies on this general ignorance to make it seem 'hip' to enjoy their 'tasty' beverages. As far as them putting other people out of business, that's really hard to say. In Seattle, I know for a fact that independent coffee places out number starbucks drastically. The only reason for that is that people here are coffee fiends. It's so ridiculous, but it helps you get through the winter where the sun is down at 4pm.

I think it may seem like there are a lot of starbucks in any major city and there are so damn many of them, but if you look in them, a lot of them are empty. They operate a large portion of their stores at a loss, because collectively, the company is making money. That's why you never see a starbucks relocate due to sales. They keep those suckers open even if they haven't sold a latte in months. This does put a pinch on local shop space, which is bad.

FYI I had to choke down americanos for the past two weeks to shmooze with my boss as my review was about to happen. I am going to go on a sudden coffee strike now. MYSTERIOUSLY right after I finally got my raise.