“It is the vocal townspeople who are wanting to force their will on the fewer number of people who want a Costa coffee in their neighborhood.”

Oh no, those poor people! The minority’s rights are getting trampled on. They’re being oppressed by that elitist and selfish majority!

Or not. This not an issue about oppression. This is not like straight folks deciding how the LGBT minority can live their personal lives. The local people get to have a say in what is built in their town, and they are saying nay.

I doubt that a single person in the town is actually so passionate about getting the chain coffee shop near them that they would do more than shrug their shoulders and say “damn, that’s too bad” if it didn’t happen. Do you truly believe that the majority, who feel the issue is important enough that they are actually protesting, should not be accounted for just so the few people who want a Costa coffee in their neighbourhood get their way? That seems completely backwards.

The planners that represented that area voted against the development based on the wishes of the people in the area affected, which they represent, the other planners voted without that consideration as they don’t represent that area.

You make out Costa to be small, smaller than the tiny town that doesn’t want them, but they are not small, 

http://www.whitbread.co.uk/whitbread.html 

According to them they managed 1,778,000,000.00 pounds of revenue in their year ending March 1, 2012. They posted a gross profit of 1,489,600,000.00 pounds. They posted a net profit of 266,000,000.00 pounds. They are publicly traded on the London exchange and have 192,000,000+ shares in play.

Whitbread Group LPC is not small by any measure, and is global, stop pretending that the parent corp is Mom and Pop, and smaller than the tiny town that doesn’t want or need them.

There need be no wrongs, that’s a false argument, the people of Totnes need not require that something be pure or impure to reject it. 

Reality, your argument that Costa is small is so ridiculous that you are a fool or a shill. Billions of pounds. Worth Billions of pounds.

A common trick of Tesco’s is to buy a business premise and persuade the council that they are continuing usage (local to me there was a car part store converted to a Tesco) and if the council get huffy they threaten to bankrupt the council with legal action.
In Totnes it seems that all the out of town councillors voted to allow Costa’s continuing use and all the resident councillors voted against. (Our town/county “democracy” is muddled to put it mildy without the clearer divisions of the US).

You do realize that many Costa locations are  independently owned franchises right? You make Costa out to be some evil mega corp when the truth is that they are big in the coffee world but tiny in the business world. 
Also, do you imagine that the manager and employees of this proposed Costa are going to be shipped in each day? Of course not. We are talking locals here.

What wrongs has Costa committed to deserve such ire? Is being successful because people like your product a sufficient reason to demonize this company? I suspect this is about well-to-do trust fund hippies wanting something, anything to protest against because the arguments against Costa seem to be based on indignation rather than reason. After all, it’s not as if Totnes is free from chain businesses.

If Totnes does not want Costa Coffee, the townspeople can simply not do business with the shop. Preventing them from even trying is bad sport and bullying and their reasoning is pure unfiltered smug.

The places I can think of are:
Red Bone’s.  12:30 not really late night but close.
Moody’s Falafel Pallace.  Open until 3:00, god I love Moody’s.
IHOP in Harvard.  I’ve never been there.  I don’t actually like chain restaurants.
South Street Diner of course.  Open 24 hours, and for that they’re famous.  But frankly I don’t like the food.  I’ll still take it though when the birds are chirping and the T hasn’t opened yet.

So what are the good places I don’t know about?

Sounds just like the tourist trap I live in. I’m sure it’s a nice place to visit, but it sucks to live here.

Why do they call it ‘tourist season’ if you’re not allowed to hunt them?

Sure. And likely why Mr Doctorow decided to post it. Caught his eye. I don’t have a beef with townspeople (or a city council) voting on whatever they do or don’t want. Seriously. I understand most NIMBYism – it’s a very human, protective reaction. There’s this little precious town north of the Golden Gate Bridge that has two (2) Whole Foods, but won’t let a Subway™ store in. Happens all the time. It’s just this particular characterization (f-a-g-c) I find laughably over the top.

wysinwyg: Convenient, hell yeah! My Simple Theory of Civilization is that we’re all in one long march towards convenience.

I don’t think you’re actually against land ownership. You can’t be.

Why can’t someone be against land ownership. It’s perfectly reasonable to allow people to own chattel property and to retain land ownership by the commons. The vast majority of non-commons land was stolen from it’s original inhabitants by foreign invaders, settlers, nobles or corporations.

…don’t turn me into a straw man…

“No stores that start with the word ‘costa’, this area is not zoned for ‘costas’.” Is not really a zoning law.

One of these things is not like the other.

I don’t think you’re actually against land ownership.  You can’t be.  Land exists.  Different people put different demands on it.  If some one is given the legal right to control what happens on that land then they de facto own it.

Physiologically modern homo sapiens predate the concept of land ownership by somewhere between .5 and 1 million years.  This statement does not reveal deep, philosophical thought.  It reveals a profound failure of imagination.

If they don’t want costa, then don’t buy their coffee.

Have you never taken a history course that covered the last 400 years? Large corporations have the resources to undersell their smaller competitors and then jack up the prices once they’re gone. They have the resources to buy local ordinances regarding hours and traffic and parking, all of which drives business away from their competitors and to them. Large corporations get large by using money and dirty tricks to plough every local business under.

That community is made stronger and more dynamic when it exists bellow the level of law, at the level of interpersonal interaction.

Exactly! Now that corporations are people, we can finally call corporate invasions “interpersonal interactions”. You’ve closed the circle.

The professional town planners have probably told the elected councillors that there are no grounds for refusing the change of use (because the ultimate business is irrelevant to the planning process) but the councillors for the area have ignored them because of the bad publicity and local feeling.

No part of the planning system allows one to ban Costa or Walmart – all they can do is ban the change of use or the erection of new buildings and only then if they can bring their reasons for banning them under one of the grounds for refusal the law allows.

“No large chains here” is not a grounds for refusing planning.

You realize that’s just what The Guardian decided to call their article right? By your reasoning here, any sensible interest in maintaining a community’s quality of life for all its citizens and local businesses is simple “NIMBYism”, a convenient accusation in order to defend neoliberal policy and ideology. Thankfully it’s one that it is easily dismissed. It easily falls apart considering this is essentially a Starbucks, so it’s not unsightly or even something that would make people immediately worry about property values or something. They are concerned about local businesses, extracted wealth, and the (outside interest/corporate) foothold that this represents in their town. Also, if you read the article, it seems that the company has targeted this big shop to be at an entry point for visiting tourists, which of course would discourage much of them from further exploring the town and the local places to drink and dine.

According to the articles, the majority of the townspeople and their officials don’t want it.  Seems like democracy in action to me, and it never surprises me to see how conservatism (neoliberal defense of power/wealth, and in this case Costa) inherently clashes with real democracy. They are directly opposed after all…