[Commons-Law] For HaidaBucks cafe, a bittersweet win

[Soenke Zehle]

[via protecting knowledge]

http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/columnists/story.asp?id=8849A44A-EE17-436F-9F3E-C4E785E8E536

For HaidaBucks cafe, a bittersweet win
A future in franchises?

Jack Knox
Victoria Times Colonist


Sunday, November 02, 2003

MASSET - Coming soon to a location near you:

A HaidaBucks franchise. Maybe.

Having faced down the giant Starbucks coffeeopolis in a trademark
tussle, the owners of the little cafe in the Queen Charlotte Islands are
thinking of branching out. They're talking to a West Virginia business
consultant about franchising, capitalizing on this spring's
well-publicized fight with the coffee giant. There have been expressions
of interest from Toronto, the Okanagan, Vancouver, even -- ahem -- 
Seattle, Starbucks' corporate and spiritual home.

But expressions of interest and $1.75 will buy you nothing more than a
cup of HaidaBucks coffee. In the meantime, there's still the matter of
the $8,000 legal bill the Masset cafe rang up before Starbucks backed down.

"We're struggling," says Willis Parnell, 37, one of the eatery's four
owners. Sure, the fuss generated a big Internet-based souvenir trade and
a flood of curious tourists this summer, but HaidaBucks remains a little
cafe teetering on the edge of the world. Starbucks is balking at paying
the $8,000, so now the owners want to recover the money through
small-claims court. "We just want to get it over with," says Parnell.

Starbucks, having stepped in a knee-high public relations cow pie, must
wish it had never begun. "We consider this matter closed and we don't
have any additional comment," a Starbucks spokeswoman said Wednesday.

This all goes back to 1999, when the four partners -- three of them
Haida, the other married to a Haida woman -- opened the cafe in tiny
Masset (pop. 1,500) at the very tippy-top of the islands they call Haida
Gwaii.

Parnell says the name reflects "who we are and where we reside."

But then somebody from Starbucks came across a website carrying a photo
of the

HaidaBucks building, the cafe's circular logo above the door. In March,
HaidaBucks got a rocket of a letter from a Vancouver law firm, telling
it to change its name. Litigation followed.

The owners refused to change, arguing that HaidaBucks, a full-service
cafe, is hundreds of kilometres from the nearest Starbucks and looks
nothing like one.

When word of the lawsuit came out, HaidaBucks hit the headlines around
the world. The BBC called for an interview from the U.K. "We were
getting e-mails from England and Australia," says Parnell.

An hour and a half down the road in Queen Charlotte City, Chubbie's
Coffee Shop announced it would change its name to ChubbieBucks in
solidarity. Way off in West Virginia, Lane Baldwin -- the consultant who
is looking into the franchising idea -- waded in with a website
(www.haidabuckscafe.com) that skewers Starbucks with some serious sarcasm.

This wasn't good news for Starbucks. The company may make a consistently
good cup of coffee, but it also depends on maintaining the cachet of a
hip, smart, progressive outfit. That's a tall order when a company grows
gargantuan -- and with 7,225 outlets worldwide and reported consolidated
net revenue of $4.1 billion for the year ended Sept. 28, Starbucks is in
danger of tilting into McDonald's territory. It doesn't want to become a
symbol of corporate imperialism.

That may be one reason Starbucks' website proudly states its commitment
to corporate social responsibility: conservation in coffee-growing
countries, neighbourhood cleanups, ethical investment policies,
community literacy projects. It does not mention beating up the Indians.

In midsummer, Starbucks declared victory in a manner befitting Saddam's
information officer, saying HaidaBucks had made the necessary changes
and the case was closed. Parnell says no changes were made, other than a
different version of the logo appearing on the website.

He acknowledges the publicity has had an upside. "It's been very good
for our business. The tourists were all flocking here.

"We probably sold 2,000 T-shirts." Plus 300 ceramic mugs and 200 of the
stainless steel variety.

"It's that David and Goliath scenario."

Still, that doesn't mean HaidaBucks is booming, he says. The owners all
work elsewhere -- Parnell runs the local recreation centre -- which
means money that could be going into their pockets goes to pay employees
instead. He's hoping something will come out of the franchising idea, a
chain of cafes with a Haida theme -- a menu with halibut soup, perhaps
-- emerging.

But on this day the reality was he was in the kitchen of his Masset
home, caring for two ailing daughters, aged two and three, cute and
coughing. So much for big business.

Down at HaidaBucks, customer Dick Grosse sucks on a mocha, just like he
does every week when he and his buddies gather. "We thought it was a
waste of time," he says when asked about Starbucks' suit. "We're in the
middle of nowhere here."

Not so far away that Starbucks could avoid the fallout, though. "I don't
think they realized it would get that bad," says Grosse, wearing one of
those HaidaBucks T-shirts. "It just got a lot bigger than they thought."

Jack Knox is a columnist with the Victoria Times Colonist