London Indymedia

Whitechapel Knees Up Against Starbucks

Space Hijackers | 27.03.2007 11:29 | Culture | Free Spaces | Globalisation | London

On one of the coldest, windiest days so far. A large group of local residents and anti-starbuck activists took to the streets of Whitechapel to hand out free fair trade tea and home made cakes, in order to raise awareness about the bad business practices of Starbucks.

Serving up tea
Serving up tea

Tucking in
Tucking in



Quite a crowd!
Quite a crowd!


Starbucks opened it's first store in the Whitechapel area last week, and in response the Space Hijackers (many of whom are local residents) organised an East End Knees Up Street party. Inviting people to come and join us giving out free tea and cakes in order to persuade people away from the green nippleless mermaid of Starbucks.

Starbucks has a history of undercutting and closing down local independent cafe's, of treating their staff badly, and their coffee growers even worse.

We set up tables, handed out free refreshments, and leafleted maps of other local independent cafe's in the area. A brass band turned up later on (A bit of a break from samba) and livened up proceedings. The response from our neighbours was very positive, with us constantly having to pop back to one of our agents flat's to refill our thermos flasks with hot water.

Thanks to everyone who came down, thanks for all the cakes and biscuits, thanks to food not bombs for lovely grub, to tower hamlets fair trade for all your help, and to barristas united for your support.

Further reports and pics are available on BBC London here:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2007/03/24/starbucks_whitechapel_feature.shtml

and Urban 75 here:

 http://www.urban75.org/photos/protest/starbucks-protest.html

more details at  http://www.spacehijackers.org

Space Hijackers
- Homepage: http://www.spacehijackers.org

Additions

We Beat You!

27.03.2007 17:15

RAGE activists at Kennet-Side Starbucks
RAGE activists at Kennet-Side Starbucks

Well done hijackers!

But don't forget that us Berkshire chaps and chapesses beat you to it. Here's members of RAGE (Reading Against G8), Rising Tide and other groups giving away free coffee, tea, soup and vegan pancakes to Christmas shoppers in 2005. We lasted about an hour before Starbucks staff sussed what we were up to, and the Bill moved us on :0)

Lord Palmer of Sealand


Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Whose children did you get in that stunt? Did their parents, relatives approve?

28.03.2007 10:46

Whose children did you get in that stunt? Did their parents, relatives approve?

innercitiespeople


???

28.03.2007 16:44

Innercitypeople. I have no idea what you are talking about????

We stole the children and filled them up with dangerous e-numbers so that when we returned them to their parents they would be way too hyper to explain our evil plan! Mwua ha ha!

Erm,

In reality, they came to our stall of their own free will, as did everyone else

Bristly Pioneer


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