I was looking through my archives, because I remembered we did a Starbucks Appreciation before, and noticed it was Joe Huffman who originally came up with the idea, back two years ago when the anti-gun folks first spewed the notion of harassing Starbucks for, you know, following state law. Back then I posted my receipt from that day, and will do so again this time around. A reader suggested posting receipts in the comments, which I think is a fine idea.
Looking back on the last fight, the Brady’s got upset over Joe’s campaign rather early on, and Abby Spangler, from Protest Easy Guns, got a little sexist. Outside of McDonald, I noticed Paul Helmke and Peter Hamm looking pretty cold, and was tempted to bring them some Starbucks as a joke. I’m only sorry I didn’t follow through (I didn’t want to get out of line and risk losing my place). Things were different then. Brady was more professional, and the other side wasn’t practicing the kind of frothing at the mouth demonization of their opponents that is now a favorite of the Laddites in the gun control movement. Lastly, Abby Spangler wouldn’t let the issue go.
I haven’t noticed the Brady organization saying anything about this year’s Starbucks Boycott effort. I suspect they don’t want to waste their time and energy on a battle they are quite likely going to lose. This current effort, two years after the first, is being lead by a particularly whacked out fringe group called National Gun Victims Action Council, who are now proclaiming:
Our economic lever cannot be overcome because we outnumber the NRA’s “extremist†faction by minimally 50 to 1. To establish the economic lever, NGAC will initiate targeted boycotts.
No, they don’t, because no one is paying any attention to them except for the frothing at the mouth crowd, and I can promise you we all have much greater buying power than they do. I have more Facebook fans than they do, and I just got started with that. I have an order of magnitude more Twitter followers, and I’m small potatoes in this issue. Take a look at who’s linking to the press release. These people have already lost, but they are too blind to see.
UPDATE: Competing events on Facebook. One here, and another here, the latter of which is the one I joined. I should note that the total number of people who say they are going is currently 3,771 across the two groups, which I expect will pass 4,000 before too long. This extremist anti-gun group has pretty clearly bitten off more than it can chew.
They’re trying to bluff Starbucks into adopting a victim disarmament policy with their grandiose claims in their press release. “14 million members”, “90% of the time our boycott will reduce Starbucks stock price by an amount no rational company would allow” etc.
I’ve said it several times before, we’ve got the best and the brightest on our side, and they’ve got people like that.
They just announced support for gay marriage in WA, so I guess I’ve got to buy two frappuccinos this year.
If you hear anything about heads exploding at Starbucks HQ, they probably read my thank you note. :D
But like gun rights, they waited until it was a done deal before putting their weight behind it…
Even though I wholeheartedly support equal marriage rights for gays, I prefer companies stay out of political issues that don’t directly affect their business. I don’t think it’s wise for companies to insert themselves into political issues, just form a business standpoint… you’re by definition limiting your market to those with whom you disagree.
I love Chick-Fil-A too, but even though they keep the company pretty neutral, some of the foundation work by the Truetts I’m not comfortable with.
Be sure to pay with $2 bills to show support for the 2nd amendment.
That’s a bad idea. Two dollar bills are hard to find and hard to get rid of, and the cashiers or baristas are likely to just think gun owners suck for making them have to deal with an oddball denomination. I’m much bigger on getting a message to corporate. They are the ones who make policy. Saying something to the cashier or barista isn’t going to make a bit of difference, and Starbucks isn’t going to get enough two dollar bills that day for corporate to notice. You’re just going to have a lot of pissed off cashiers.
Sebastian, do you really think that’s true about the $2 bills? Money is money. Whether it’s Washingtons, Jeffersons, Lincolns, or dollar coins, it all spends the same. People are always surprised when they get a $2, usually pleasantly. That’s the beauty of using them in this campaign. It’s different and sets us apart. Some may well think it’s a pain, but it will create a buzz, and I think that it will be a positive buzz. Let’s have some fun and show our playful side. Beside, using Jefferson’s portrait and the signing of the Declaration of Independence has tremendous symbolism, even if it goes over a lot of people’s heads, it will be noticed.
BTW, many thanks for all that you and Bitter do and thanks for promoting Starbucks Appreciation Day.
I just don’t think it’ll be a buzz, and to the extent that it is, I don’t think it’ll be positive. Your average Starbucks Barista or Cashier won’t even know who Thomas Jefferson is, or that he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
Make sure Starbucks Corporate knows. They are who matter.
Shove the 2 dollar bill in the tip jar. There will be 0 complaint for that. I can understand being annoyed if you were needing change. Taking their few remaining 1’s and giving them 2 dollar bills would be a PITFA.
Putting a 2 dollar bill in the tip jar and telling the Barista why would go a LONG way in putting a smile on their face.
We’re out there to win hearts and minds. While I could see some anal retentive individual getting upset about the cash drawer issue. None are going to be upset by having a pile of cash in their tip jar.
Speaking as a (former) cashier, yes $2 bills are annoying, though not nearly so annoying as dollar coins, because there is no place to put them in the till. Neither of those are half as annoying as someone using a $100 bill for a small purchase though.
IMHO, Barron Barnett has a great idea.
In the interest of honest reporting I take issue with one of your statements.
“no one is paying any attention to them except for the frothing at the mouth crowd” should read “no one is paying any attention to them except for the frothing at the mouth crowd and pro-liberty people keeping tabs on them, who outnumber the frothing at the mouth crowd by at least 50 10 1”
good work otherwise :-)
Somewhere (might have been here) I read that while the NRA only has 4 million dues-paying members, there are another something like 28 million people who believe they are NRA members but aren’t actually paying dues.
So, even taking their obviously falsified members list of 14 million, they’d only outnumber actual dues-paying members by something like 3.5:1, and they’re outnumbered by not-quite-NRA members by 2:1. That’s not counting all the people who agree with the NRA but don’t associate with them, and those who are members of other pro-gun groups; and of course, all of these political active gun owners are simply a subset of the more than 80 million* Americans who own guns.
*Speaking of which, it seems to me that this statistic is rather old. Has it been updated recently? I’d think it’d be up past 100 million by now, particularly after the huge increase in gun sales in the past couple of years.
The population of America is just over 300 million. Of those, roughly a quarter are under 18, leaving about 225 million. If you accept Gallup, 45% of those have a gun in their house–right around 100 million. Of course, who is and isn’t a gun owner is largely a matter of definition, within the context of a household.
Starbucks Stock didn’t take a hit from this! I am buying !! It’s a bargain at 47 and change. I can see it doing 55 this year!