SEATTLE - When a black man was shot to death by a white police officer, a Seattle community leader called for a boycott of Starbucks, even though the coffee chain had nothing to do with the shooting.
When organic-food activists wanted to raise awareness of milk containing artificial bovine growth hormone, the protesters went to Starbucks, too - even though the company had already said it would work to stop using such milk.
And when suburbanites near San Diego wanted to fight the corporatization of their community, they targeted a planned Starbucks - not the Rite-Aid drug store or the Jack in the Box right up the road.
Across the country in recent months, protesters have been gathering at Starbucks. And it's not a double-tall nonfat latte they're after.
Instead, they are hoping that the coffee chain's omnipresence and its socially conscious customers will help draw attention to such issues as racial profiling and food safety.
The protesters readily admit that Starbucks is not a bad corporate citizen. The company has cultivated a socially conscious image by giving extensively to local charities, working to preserve the environment in areas where it buys coffee and using environmentally friendly products.
But that didn't stop Ronnie Cummins of the Little Marais, Minn.-based Organic Consumer Association from going after Starbucks last spring, when he announced plans to picket Starbucks stores over the use of bovine growth hormone in some of the milk they serve.
"We believe that Starbucks is the weakest link in the chain because their customer base cares about the environment and cares about social justice and cares about their health," Cummins said.
Starbucks considers itself a victim of its own success.
"We are, I guess, in some ways accustomed to being front and center on some issues that I don't think we own," Orin Smith, Starbucks president and chief executive, said this week. "But it is the price of being so visible."
The company has responded to many of the protesters' concerns - because Smith, like the protesters, believes Starbucks customers will.
"We have to do what is right for our customers, and to that extent we will continue to work on some of these issues," he said.
Starbucks began in 1971 with a single store in Seattle. It now has 3,300 locations worldwide. Despite the protests, Starbucks reported earnings of $32.2 million in its latest quarter, up 38 percent from the year-ago period.
Still, the protesters aren't easily deterred. On the eve of the organic-rights group protest last spring, Starbucks announced it would begin offering hormone-free milk by the end of July. Nonetheless, protests resumed at more than 200 Starbucks this week.
At a downtown Seattle Starbucks, a coffee drinker was unmoved.
"Whatever's going to kill me, it's not going to be the milk in my coffee," said Brian Eckstrom, 44.
[OG Reaction: Visit your local Starbucks early and often.]
-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001