This post has been updated. Please see note at bottom for
details.
Those who prefer to drink their lattes packing protection on
their hip turned out at Starbucks across the country on the first day of a
"buycott" organized by gun owners -- countering the Starbucks boycott
called this week by the National Gun Victims Action Council.
The issue of Starbucks allowing gun owners to openly carry
their weapons in states that have "open carry" laws has been
simmering for years. The new boycott, which launched Tuesday, aims at
persuading Starbucks to join a growing list of retail chains, including Peet's
Coffee, California Pizza Kitchen and IKEA, which prohibit guns even when
they're otherwise legal.
"Starbucks allowing guns to be carried in thousands of
their stores significantly increases everyone's risk of being a victim of gun
violence," Elliot Fineman, head of the Chicago-based council, said in a
press release announcing the boycott.
Most of the visible action Tuesday seemed to be on the
buycott side of things, though, as gun groups across the country urged their
members to show up at Starbucks -- not necessarily with their weapons -- and
spend.
Joe Huffman, a Seattle software engineer who writes a gun
blog based in his native Idaho, reported that he and his friends spent $131.64
at the Starbucks in Seattle's main shopping district Tuesday.
"I wasn't carrying a gun. I did have a jacket on that
had an [National Rifle Assn.] life member patch," Huffman said in an
interview. "I wanted to demonstrate that even though they're under a lot
of pressure, we're very appreciative of them standing up against those
people."
Similar "Starbucks Appreciation Day"
demonstrations were reported in several states, including Hawaii, Tennessee,
and Michigan, as well as in several suburban communities around Seattle, where
Starbucks is headquartered.
In Columbus, Ohio, students promoting the right to carry
guns at Ohio State University protested outside a Starbucks, carrying signs
with such slogans as, "Because I CAN'T carry a cop," the Lantern
student newspaper reported.
"I threw out the idea of a Starbucks appreciation day
on my online forum, and God Almighty, it caught fire," Dave Workman,
editor of the Gun Mag, based in Bellevue, Wash., said in an interview.
"These guys want Starbucks to act as their surrogate,
to push this social bigotry against gun owners, and I think the gun owners have
responded rather well,"Workman said. "The gun guys are willing to put
their money where their mouth is, while the anti-gun guys are trying to take money
away from Starbucks. Now if I was in business, if I was Howard Schultz, I would sit
back and think, 'Guess whose side I'm on? Not the people who are taking my
business away.'"
Starbucks officials did not respond to phone calls or emails
seeking comment. But in a statement on its website -- placed there in 2010 when
the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence launched a petition campaign targeting
the chain -- Starbucks said its policy was to follow existing state laws where
its stores operate.
"That means we abide by the laws that permit open carry
in 43 U.S. states. Where these laws don’t exist, openly carrying weapons in our
stores is prohibited.
The political, policy and legal debates around these issues
belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores," the company
said.
The Brady campaign's legislation director, Brian Malte, told
the Los Angeles Times that the group is continuing with its public pressure
campaign, although it is not participating in the boycott.
"We still feel there's time for Starbucks to make the
right decision to protect their employees and customers," Malte said.
But Fineman said boycott advocates made the decision that it
was time to step up the pressure. He said the coalition includes about 50
secular anti-gun organizations, faith groups and private citizens touched by
gun violence, whose numbers, through a complicated formula, he puts at 14
million.
Fineman, who runs a marketing firm whose clients include
Fortune 500 companies, became active in gun control causes after his son was
shot and killed in a San Diego restaurant in 2006 by a mentally ill man
wielding a legally purchased handgun.
"We're not going to let people just say, 'This isn't
our issue, it's a political issue.' Because there's no way that the current
forces on our side can combat the NRA. They're just too big. They have an
enormous amount of money and people, and they throw their weight around in a
pretty big fashion," Fineman said in an interview.
"But who has more money than them? Corporate America.
So the point is to get corporate America to do what we can't do."
[Updated, 3:48 p.m. Feb. 15: In a statement released
Wednesday after this post was published, Starbucks reiterated that its policy
is to comply with the law in the communities where its stores are. “As the
public debate around this issue continues, we encourage customers and advocacy
groups from both sides to share their input with their public officials,"
the company said. "We are extremely sensitive to the issue of gun violence
in our society and believe that supporting local laws is the right way for us
to ensure a safe environment for both our partners (employees) and
customers."]
Link to original article follows:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/02/starbucks-guns-boycott.html
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