# Costa Coffee protests - Gloucester Road



## BlackArab (Jul 23, 2011)

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Traders-cause-stir-battle-Costa/story-12994940-detail/story.html

A bit weird this as the traders are opposing 'big name chains' coming to Gloucester Road as opposed to independents. Seems a bit late considering the many 'chains' that have existed there for decades. 

Why didn't they oppose Sainsburys?


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## big eejit (Jul 23, 2011)

Presumably cos there are loads of cafes on Gloucester Road, must be the highest concentration in Bristol. So it's understandable that they don't want a chain coming in to nick their business.

Bloke who runs it sounds like a knobber too.

"He ... admitted the street was "not entirely salubrious in places" and that people living in the area "often felt threatened by it" and didn't shop there.

Mr Montgomery, who lives in Westbury-on-Trym and runs Costa coffee shops in Henleaze and Portishead, has applied to Bristol City Council for planning permission to use the employment agency premises as a coffee shop."


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## strung out (Jul 23, 2011)

iirc, there were a few protests/petitions/objections about the sainsburys that opened there, organised by the same people running the anti-tesco protests on stokes croft. as sainsburys didn't have to apply for change of use, there was nothing that could be done though.


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## BlackArab (Jul 23, 2011)

big eejit said:


> Presumably cos there are loads of cafes on Gloucester Road, must be the highest concentration in Bristol. So it's understandable that they don't want a chain coming in to nick their business.



Yep totally understandable. I overheard a local cafe owner on Stokes Croft complaining about the increasing number of cafes there which have caused a fall in business for her own long-established business. But the focus for this one is the fact that it's a chain not an independent, when there are have *always* been chains on Gloucester Road.


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## BlackArab (Jul 23, 2011)

strung out said:


> iirc, there were a few protests/petitions/objections about the sainsburys that opened there, organised by the same people running the anti-tesco protests on stokes croft. as sainsburys didn't have to apply for change of use, there was nothing that could be done though.



Tescos on _Cheltenham Road_ are in a building that was previously a supermarket, so the same logic should apply.


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## strung out (Jul 23, 2011)

it may have been a supermarket at one point, but tesco (under their secret identity of jesters) still had to apply for a change of use from entertainment venue to retail, hence the protestors being able to oppose tesco at the planning stage.


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## BlackArab (Jul 23, 2011)

strung out said:


> it may have been a supermarket at one point, but tesco (under their secret identity of jesters) still had to apply for a change of use from entertainment venue to retail, hence the protestors being able to oppose tesco at the planning stage.



Hardly a secret. But I don't want to dig up old arguments. I am more interested in the no chain policy of the Gloucester Road traders and how they justify this policy considering the long existence of chain stores there.


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## Gerry1time (Jul 23, 2011)

I'm more wondering which parts of the gloucester road make people feel threatened?  These days it's just a place where the middle class come to breed.


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## Hocus Eye. (Jul 23, 2011)

Gerry1time said:


> I'm more wondering which parts of the gloucester road make people feel threatened?  These days it's just a place where the middle class come to breed.



Oh dear, which part of the breeding process occurs on that road, the conception or the birthing?


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## bi0boy (Jul 23, 2011)

It seems to be a combination of people who "don't like Mr Montgomery" and people who already run cafes presumably so shitly that they fear Costa will make them go out of business.


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## Geri (Jul 23, 2011)

Gerry1time said:


> I'm more wondering which parts of the gloucester road make people feel threatened?  These days it's just a place where the middle class come to breed.


 
When I suggested going to the Sheesh Mahal for a curry, my workmates were horrified and one of them said "it's a bit dodgy up there, isn't it?"


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## Gerry1time (Jul 24, 2011)

Geri said:


> When I suggested going to the Sheesh Mahal for a curry, my workmates were horrified and one of them said "it's a bit dodgy up there, isn't it?"



Wow. Just, wow. I remember when I was 18 and wandering over there from Clifton, I thought it was a bit run down, but not dodgy. It's been immensely gentrified since. Like Cheltenham Road really, or 'stokes croft' as the wanker arrivistes seem to have decided to rename it. 



Hocus Eye. said:


> Oh dear, which part of the breeding process occurs on that road, the conception or the birthing?



I think they tend to conceive indoors, although they may do in St Andrews Park occasionally i guess. Then they migrate up the Gloucester Road to Southmead Hospital for the actual birth, before migrating back down to raise the child. Traditional child rearing methods on that road seem to include buying the largest pram possible, wandering aimlessly along the small pavement or small shop aisles, then getting arsey when people try to go about their day around them.


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## BlackArab (Jul 24, 2011)

Gerry1time said:


> I think they tend to conceive indoors, although they may do in St Andrews Park occasionally i guess. Then they migrate up the Gloucester Road to Southmead Hospital for the actual birth, before migrating back down to raise the child. Traditional child rearing methods on that road seem to include buying the largest pram possible, wandering aimlessly along the small pavement or small shop aisles, then getting arsey when people try to go about their day around them.



Do you mean the all-terrain prams that look like they could tackle the Himalayas?


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