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Starbucks Out of J-town!
by Tracker
5/26/05
updated 6/6/05
Liz Capurro, Starbucks' regional director of operations for San
Francisco, said the company has dropped plans to move into J-town. In a victory
for the community, facing mounting opposition from residents and merchants,
she said it was not the best place " to build a relationship." Damn
right.
Let’s have a world where you can go anywhere in it and see the same twelve stores, and corporate commerce is the only commerce. Corporate America and its valet, redevelopment authorities, is bringing such a world to San Francisco J-Town. Starbucks and UPS are proposing to take up shop in the former Japantown Bowl bowling alley, a former community institution at 1600 Webster.
The Starbucks will compete with and threaten to drive out long-standing neighborhood businesses that sell coffee such as Benkyodo that been around 100 years, Mays Café, 33 years old, and Café Hana, 17 years in the community. Already there are 55 Starbucks within a two-mile radius of 1600 Webster.
Thus Starbucks may help complete the job that the city’s Redevelopment Authority’s urban redevelopment plans began in the 60’s, the destruction of J-town. Tellingly, the Redevelopment Agency did not first consult with those most deeply affected by the decision to bring Starbucks into Japantown, the community. Despite an agreement with the community not to lease space to fast-food outlets and franchises, the Agency tap danced through that by claiming that Starbucks is not a franchise. Community efforts to buy the building from the Kintetsu, a transnational corporation, the previous owner, were rejected.
Community activists have organized a campaign to stop Starbucks from coming to San Francisco’s Japantown. They have not organized opposition to UPS, which they say does not compete with neighborhood businesses. They say that Marcia Rosen, Redevelopment Agency Director has cut a secret deal with Anasazi Properties, the developer, with no consultation with those most deeply affected – long-time Japantown coffee businesses. They have seen corporate chain stores like Starbucks “choke-out” local family businesses through super saturation into neighborhoods. Small businesses cannot compete with an uneven playing field. The activists also note that bringing Starbucks into Japantown works against preservation efforts to sustain small Japantown businesses that have contributed to our community, and that there are only three Japantowns left in the entire U.S.
They have begun a petition, on line at http://www.petitiononline.com/1600Web/petition.html. They are also mobilizing for hearings. The next one is on June 7th.
City Hearing
Oppose Starbucks!
June 7th 4 pm
San Francisco City Hall, Room 416,
When
1600 Webster was J-town Bowl
