Starbucks goes after pub for 'Frappicino beer"; pub sends $6, hilarious response

By Emma Lacey-Bordeaux and Dave Alsup

CNN

(CNN) - You've probably heard this one before: Little guy gets too close to a trademark held by a big company. Big company threatens legal action. Little guy backs off.

But have you heard the one where the small business owner responds to a cease and desist order from Starbucks with a satirical letter and a check for $6?

At issue: A craft beer called "Frappicino."

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's start at the beginning.

Jeff Briton owns the Exit 6 Pub and Brewery in Cottleville, Missouri. He has for two and a half years. The place isn't a fancy gastro pub, in fact, it doesn't even have a kitchen.

It does one thing and does it well: serve craft beer seven days a week, starting at 4 p.m.

Last January, Briton mixed two of his creations together: A vanilla creme and a chocolate coffee ale.

The result, according to a customer, tasted a whole lot like a certain blended coffee ice beverage served at the more than 5,500 Starbucks locations worldwide.

The customer wrote about the creation on a beer website, Un Tapped, and called it a "Frappicino" -- one letter off from the Starbucks trademarked name.

Fast forward 11 months.

Last week, Briton received a letter from Starbucks' lawyers, asking him to stop using the name.

"The FRAPPICINO mark only differs from Starbucks Coffee Co.'s FRAPPUCCINO mark by one letter," the letter said, "and is phonetically identical."

The bar's use of the name would cause "confusion" among buyers, it added.

The message was clear: you violated our trademark. Stop.

But in the black and white legalese, Briton saw an opportunity.

"This huge law firm sends me this letter," Briton told CNN on Monday night. "How many hours did that lawyer have to spend in sending that out?"

Briton says he reckons that Starbucks spent more in law firm billable hours than he made in the entire month of December.

In other words, Briton felt he had to respond.

Addressing his response to the lawyer and "Mr. Bucks," he referred to the offending beverage and trademark as "The F Word" so as to fend of further litigation risk.

"It has recently come to the Exit 6 Pub and Brewerys attention that there were 3 check ins to the beer with a very similar name to the "F Word". Unfortunately it was only similar to the F Word because we meant to call it the same thing. Lucky for us, we're poor spelers."

"We just feel awful about calling a beer the F Word," the letter went on. "We are bad people. We feel shame."

And while Briton wrote that he would stop calling the beer "The F Word," he also wanted to reassure Mr. Bucks that he and his customers meant no harm.

"I guess that with there being a Starbucks on every corner of every block in every city that some people may think they could get a Starbucks at a local bar," he wrote. "So that was our mistake."

Briton said he wanted to make amends.

So, in an effort to "remain in good standings," he included a check for the "full amount of profit gained" from sales of the offending brew.

Total number of beers sold: three. The check to Starbucks: $6.

People love stories about little guys standing up to corporations with big pockets. And soon, Briton's story was splashed all over mainstream media.

"Even someone very inebriated should not find coffee and beer to be confusingly similar," wrote Mike Sandburg on the bar's Facebook page.

Added Mindy Schildroth: "I think you should name your next beer Six Bucks!"

And Martin Lawler said he'd fly from Oakhurst, California, just to order the beer. "And I don't like stouts!!"

Laurel Harper, a manager for Starbucks communication, told CNN the request her company sent to Briton was "respectful."

"Just like many business, trademark law requires all companies, including Starbucks, to consistently protect its brand," she said via e-mail. "We always prefer to resolve trademark disputes informally and amicably whenever possible, and we appreciate Exit 6 Pub and Brewery respecting our request to avoid confusion among customers."

Harper told CNN she hadn't heard about Briton's check. She said Starbucks wouldn't be cashing it.

The experience prompted Briton to stop producing another beer, he said tongue planted firmly in cheek:

The "Starbuck-McDonalds-Coca Cola-Marlboro Honey Lager."

Article on CNN.com

Molina Considers A Move To Downtown Detroit

Molina Healthcare of Michigan may go from suburban living to city dwelling.

The state's third-largest Medicaid HMO, which has about 60,000 square feet in the two-building Liberty Center office complex at Big Beaver and Livernois roads in Troy, is exploring a relocation of its 300 employees to downtown Detroit, according to real estate sources.

One of Molina's top downtown prospects is the 415,000-square-foot Detroit Media Partnership building, home of The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press. The DMP announced in January that it would sell the building and move its 600 employees to another downtown location by next summer.

Southfield also is a possibility.

"We are considering our options. We have not decided where to locate," said Stephen Harris, CEO of Molina Healthcare of Michigan.

Molina's lease expires on Aug. 31, according to Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service CoStar Group Inc. The 139,000-square-foot building at 100 W. Big Beaver is 97 percent leased, according to CoStar.

A Molina move downtown would put it near one of its chief competitors, Detroit-based Meridian Health Plan of Michigan, which plans to move into a new, $111-million office building, construction on which is expected to begin by early 2015. Meridian would move in by early 2017.

The 320,000-square-foot Meridian building would be across from Compuware Corp. headquarters on the Monroe Block, bounded by Monroe, Bates and Farmer streets; Woodward Avenue; and Cadillac Square, less than a mile from the DMP building.

Molina is among the top Medicaid HMO plans in Michigan in terms of enrollment. The top three are Meridian, with about 295,000 members; United Healthcare Community Plan, with about 243,000; and Molina, with about 214,000, according to the 2012 Michigan Health Market Review.

Built in 1988, 100 W. Big Beaver is leasing for $21 a square foot, according to the website of Farmington Hills-based Thomas A. Duke Co., a part owner of the Liberty Center.

San Diego-based McKinney Advisory Group hired Bloomfield Hills-based Forum Group LLC to represent Molina locally.

Tom Lasky, the founding member of Forum Group, who is representing Molina, declined to comment.

"Our lease is up. We are trying to get to a decision as quickly as possible."

Judge Clears Way For Detroit Bankruptcy

Detroit is eligible to shed billions in debt in the largest public bankruptcy in U.S. history, a judge said Tuesday in a long-awaited decision that now shifts the case toward how the city will accomplish that task.

Judge Steven Rhodes turned down objections from unions, pension funds and retirees, which, like other creditors, could lose under any plan to solve $18 billion in long-term liabilities.

But that plan isn't on the judge's desk yet. The issue for Rhodes, who presided over a nine-day trial, was whether Detroit met specific conditions under federal law to stay in bankruptcy court and turn its finances around after years of mismanagement, chronic population loss and collapse of the middle class.

The city has argued that it needs bankruptcy protection for the sake of beleaguered residents suffering from poor services such as slow to nonexistent police response, darkened streetlights and erratic garbage pickup — a concern mentioned by the judge during the trial.

Before the July filing, nearly 40 cents of every dollar collected by Detroit was used to pay debt, a figure that could rise to 65 cents without relief through bankruptcy, according to the city.

"The status quo is unacceptable," emergency manager Kevyn Orr testified.

Announcing his decision, Rhodes said Detroit has a proud history.

"The city of Detroit was once a hard-working, diverse, vital city, the home of the automobile industry, proud of its nickname the Motor City," he said.

But he then recited a laundry list of Detroit's warts: double-digit unemployment, "catastrophic" debt deals, thousands of vacant homes, dilapidated public safety vehicles and waves of population loss.

Detroit no longer has the resources to provide critical services, the judge said, adding: "The city needs help."

Rhodes' decision is a critical milestone. He said pensions, like any contract, can be cut, adding that a provision in the Michigan Constitution protecting public pensions isn't a bulletproof shield in a bankruptcy.

The city says pension funds are short by $3.5 billion. Anxious retirees drawing less than $20,000 a year have appeared in court and put an anguished face on the case. Despite his finding, Rhodes cautioned everyone that he won't automatically approve pension cuts that could be part of Detroit's eventual plan to get out of bankruptcy.

There are other wrinkles. Art possibly worth billions at the Detroit Institute of Arts could be part of a solution for creditors, as well as the sale of a water department that serves much of southeastern Michigan. Orr offered just pennies on every dollar owed during meetings with creditors before bankruptcy.

Behind closed doors, mediators, led by another judge, have been meeting with Orr's team and creditors for weeks to explore possible settlements.

Much of the trial, which ended Nov. 8, focused on whether Orr's team had "good-faith" negotiations with creditors before the filing, a key step for a local government to be eligible for Chapter 9. Orr said four weeks were plenty, but unions and pension funds said there never were serious across-the-table talks.

"The governor took more time to interview the consultants to help the city with restructuring than they took to negotiate the restructuring itself. That's absurd," attorney Sharon Levine, representing AFSCME, said at trial.

"The governor took more time to interview the consultants to help the city with restructuring than they took to negotiate the restructuring itself. That's absurd," attorney Sharon Levine, representing AFSCME, said at trial.

An appeal of Rhodes' decision is a certainty. Opponents want to go directly to a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, bypassing the usual procedure of having a U.S. District Court judge hear the case.

Orr, a bankruptcy expert, was appointed in March under a Michigan law that allows a governor to send a manager to distressed cities, townships or school districts. A manager has extraordinary powers to reshape local finances without interference from elected officials. But by July, Orr and Gov. Rick Snyder decided bankruptcy was Detroit's best option.

Detroit, a manufacturing hub that offered good-paying, blue-collar jobs, peaked at 1.8 million residents in 1950 but has lost more than a million since then. Tax revenue in a city that is larger in square miles than Manhattan, Boston and San Francisco combined can't reliably cover pensions, retiree health insurance and buckets of debt sold to keep the budget afloat.

Donors have written checks for new police cars and ambulances. A new agency has been created to revive tens of thousands of streetlights that are dim or simply broken after years of vandalism and mismanagement.

While downtown and Midtown are experiencing a rebirth, even apartments with few vacancies, many traditional neighborhoods are scarred with blight and burned-out bungalows.

Besides financial challenges, Detroit has an unflattering reputation as a dangerous place. In early November, five people were killed in two unrelated shootings just a few days apart. Police Chief James Craig, who arrived last summer, said he was almost carjacked in an unmarked car.

The case occurs at a time of a historic political transition. Former hospital executive Mike Duggan takes over as mayor in January, the third mayor since Kwame Kilpatrick quit in a scandal in 2008 and the first white mayor in largely black Detroit since the 1970s.

Orr, the emergency manager, is in charge at least through next fall, although he's expected to give Duggan more of a role at city hall than the current mayor, Dave Bing, who has little influence in daily operations.

Win One For The Gipper: Coaching Legend 81 Years Old Ends 57 Coaching Career On Top

Al Fracassa is going out on top.

The coaching legend ended his 57-year career Friday with another Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 2 state championship, as Birmingham Brother Rice defeated Muskegon, 38-21.

It is the third consecutive championship for the Warriors and Fracassa's ninth as coach.

"I wish I was young enough to coach some more," said Fracassa, 81, whose career record is 386-98-2. "When you love something so much, it's hard to leave."

Junior quarterback Alex Malzone had a hand in all five touchdowns. He completed 20-of-24 passes for 263 yards and four touchdowns and ran for another.

"They blitzed a lot, and our offensive line picked them up," Malzone said. "Obviously, our receivers made some great plays."

"I'm going to have to go back and re-evaluate what we're doing in the championship games," Big Reds coach Shane Fairfield said. "It must be something that I'm doing wrong in preparing for these championship games."
Muskegon quarterback Deshaun Thrower had 22 carries for 128 yards and two touchdowns and threw for 183 yards and a touchdown.

Malzone's 18-yard TD pass to Grant Perry with 1:07 remaining in the first half broke a tie and gave Brother Rice the lead for good, 21-14. Perry also caught another touchdown pass among his five catch, 91-yard day.

The Warriors broke the game open with 10 points in less than a minute early in the fourth quarter to take a 31-14 lead.

Jason Alessi kicked a 36-yard field goal on the first play of the fourth. After the kickoff, Thrower fumbled on a third-and-6 play and Brother Rice's Shaun Jones Jr. recovered at Muskegon's 21-yard-line.

Malzone then hit Corey Lacanaria for a 21-yard touchdown pass on the next play.

New owners of Macomb Mall to begin renovations by razing empty building

Lormax Stern Development Co. has received approval from the Roseville City Council to demolish a vacant building at Macomb Mall, which the company bought earlier this year.

Demolition of the 127,000-square-foot building, which once was a Value City store, will begin in the next 10 to 14 days.

The demolition is the beginning of a multiphase mall renovation by Lormax Stern, the mall's owner, said Karl Zarbo, director of operations for the West Bloomfield Township-based company.

Zarbo today denied media reports over the weekend that the Value City building demolition was part of $8.4 million in renovations planned at Macomb Mall. He would not say what would be built on the site of the demolished building.

"Everything else you're reading in the news is very premature," said Zarbo.

More details on the renovations should be announced in the next 30 days, he said.
Lormax Stern purchased Macomb Mall from 32233 Gratiot Avenue Holdings LLC in May for an undisclosed price.

The mall was built in 1964 and is home to about 90 specialty stores and anchors, such as Kohl's, Sears, Old Navy and Babies "R" Us.