Happening Now: Buddhist Monk Superglued to Starbucks Counter

For Immediate Release:
June 15, 2022

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

A Buddhist monk wearing traditional robes has superglued his hand to the café counter at the Starbucks store at the intersection of E. Adams Street and S. Michigan Avenue downtown and is surrounded by PETA supporters chanting, “Save the planet! Save the cows! Stop the vegan upcharge now!” The action is a continuation of PETA’s campaign—backed by Sir Paul McCartney and Succession star James Cromwell—calling out Starbucks for charging extra for the vegan milks it agrees are better for the planet. It’s being livestreamed on Facebook here.

“Starbucks’ punitive price hike on vegan milks is bad for cows, bad for the planet, and bad for lactose-intolerant customers, many of whom are people of color,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA will stick to Starbucks like glue until it agrees to drop the vegan upcharge.”

PETA supporters—including Cromwell—have held “glue-ins” at the Starbucks café at the company’s Seattle headquarters and at the Starbucks store in New York’s Times Square to protest the upcharge. McCartney has written to former and current Starbucks CEOs asking them to drop the upcharge. Starbucks itself points out that the dairy industry is a top producer of the greenhouse gases that contribute to the climate catastrophe and encourages customers to choose plant-basted milks—while continuing to charge more for them.

Cows used for dairy are artificially inseminated—workers insert an arm into the animals’ rectum and a metal rod to deliver semen into their vagina—and then sent to slaughter once their bodies have given out after repeated pregnancies.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.