Starbucks opening greeted by local knees up

Described as “a prop­er east-end knees up”, locals gath­ered out­side the new Star­bucks store for a tea par­ty, “in defence of our area, and to show off the love­ly cul­ture we have”.

The group said that the area has a vibrant com­mu­ni­ty of local cafés and small cof­fee shops and are “wor­ried about an oncom­ing bland­ing of local cul­ture, as oth­er multi­na­tion­al chains fol­low Star­bucks into the area and attempt to gen­tri­fy it with their bland cor­po­rate décor, homoge­nous facades and taste­less prod­ucts.”

From about 1pm till 4pm they set up a stall and gave out free fair trade teas and home made cakes in an attempt to show what the area will be miss­ing if Star­bucks and their ilk are allowed to set­tle in. They gave out maps of the area on which were marked alter­na­tive local places to buy cof­fee and keep mon­ey with­in the local com­mu­ni­ty.

The Lon­don Food Not Bombs group, who have been giv­ing away free hot meals every sat­ur­day in the park oppo­site, join the tea par­ty with a sound sys­tem and steam­ing pots of food which soon attract­ed a queue.

Police even­tu­al­ly stepped in and threat­ened to arrest those gath­er­ing around the stall for obstruc­tion of the high­way. The Food Not Bombs groups moved across the road to their nor­mal spot in the park. Every­one else shuf­fled a few feet back behind the build­ing line but packed up short­ly after any­way as all the tea and bis­cuits had run out.