Group finds Starbucks logo too hot to handle

Seems that one person's smut is another person's morning latte.

A Christian group based in San Diego found grounds for outrage over the new retro-style logo for Starbucks Coffee.

The Resistance says the new image "has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute," Mark Dice, founder of the group, said in a news release. "Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks."

The group, which claims more than 3,000 members nationwide and has found a place on the fringe advancing various conspiracy theories, is calling for a national boycott of the coffee-selling giant.

The logo will run on Starbucks cups for "several more weeks," said company spokeswoman Bridget Baker, and will live on as the logo for Pike Place bags of coffee.

The image is a less-revealing version of what the chain used for many years, starting when it first opened in Seattle in 1971. That original logo was resurrected in its Northwest outlets for a time in 2006 to mark the chain's 35th anniversary.

Baker said the newly revived logo was "modified a bit [from the original] based on feedback" from Starbucks customers during its 2006 appearance. "We feel it's appropriate," she said.

The explanation for that initial logo is explained in the book "Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time," written by company founder Howard Schultz:

"[Creative partner Terry Heckler] poured [sic] over old marine books until he came up with a logo based on an old 16 Century Norse woodcut: a two-tailed mermaid, or siren, encircled by the store's original name, Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice. That early siren, bare-breasted and Rubenesque, was supposed to be as seductive as coffee itself."

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482