Bellevue Barista's Antitrust Suit Against Starbucks Heading to Court

Federal court documents filed here recount how coffee giant Starbucks "cluster-bombs" neighborhoods, adding ever more stores to compete against each other and drive off the competition. Now, that saturation strategy has itself taken a surprise hit. A federal judge says Eastside coffee shop owner Penny Stafford, who pours the espresso and works her own till, can go to trial next year and attempt to prove that billionaire Chairman Howard Schultz and his 15,000-store empire thwarted her expansion plans.

Stafford has offered plausible evidence that the company's leasing deals in Seattle and Bellevue high-rises may violate antitrust law, the court concluded. She asserts that Starbucks illegally blocked her from opening competing stores in those buildings, hurting her financially. It's all part of the saturation strategy, Stafford claims, which includes Starbucks' intense cannibalizing of its own stores by adding other company outlets nearby, keeping aspiring interlopers like her at bay. She is seeking unspecified damages and a federal injunction to end Starbucks' exclusive lease deals with major landlords.

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Source - Seattle Weekly


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