Today, the “Dumb Starbucks: Authorities aren’t Laughing” article from http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/10/news/companies/dumb-starbucks-prank/ will be discusses. In this article, the Los Angeles County Health Department shut down a coffee shop that was trying to make fun of Starbucks by simply placing the word “dumb” in front of all the product names.  This was not the final reason for shutting the shop down. The new little coffee shop ended up shutting down because it did not have the necessary permits. The owner’s reasoning for not needing the proper permits are stated below:

“Legally speaking, we’re operating as an art gallery — under parody law, it only covers art — so the coffee you’re buying is the art,” Fielder said, explaining parody law meant he could use the Starbucks logo to make a comedic point. “Because of that we do not have a health permit so we didn’t have to pay those fees and we passed on the savings to the customers.”

This was not the only way the coffee shop was trying to save money. Apparently, they were buying whatever coffee beans their provider had on sale. I think it’s great that the coffee shop wanted to save money, for both itself and the customers, but the main reason why Starbucks can get away with charging so much for their coffee is because it tastes so good. In other words, customers don’t mind spending the money on their coffee if the customers see the purchase as being “worth it”.