Stop Panda Express
Thursday, 7:30pm
Sproul Steps

We really need ALL of you at this action on Thursday at 7:30 PM on the Sproul Steps with all the noise making abilities you got to drive Panda Express away from our beloved campus.

We need as many people as possible to make sure that Panda Express and the auxiliary understand that WE DO NOT WANT fast food chains/corporations on this campus. They are meeting with the store operations board behind closed doors in UCPD headquarters (located in the Sproul Basement), so we gotta come hard and be loud so they can hear us thundering through those walls and windows.

please read this email below from christina for more info...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Christina Oatfield
Date: Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 12:22 AM
Subject: you are needed Thursday 7:30pm Sproul steps to keep fast food chains off of our campus!!


Hello everyone who has supported the No Panda Express campaign,

Panda Express Representatives are coming to Berkeley this Thursday!! This is HUGE! This is our opportunity to show them the opposition to Panda Express at UC Berkeley and drive them away!!

The Store Operations Board has been voting by a slim majority to continue contract negotiations with Panda, but there is still no finalized contract and it is definitely not too late to stop the plans, especially because Panda has not seen our opposition yet and if Panda saw how we're able to mobilize against them they might think twice before spending all that money to come onto our campus.

They have a private meeting scheduled with members of the SOB and ASUC elected officials only this Thursday at 8pm in the basement of Sproul Hall, behind the security of UCPD, but that can't stop us from exercising our rights to free speech and protesting outside!!

At the last SOB meeting, several dozen students came out and spoke about the environmental sustainability, health and cultural concerns they had with the plans to bring Panda Express into Lower Sproul. This kind of mobilization is unprecedented in the history of the Store Operations Board. I think the Board was pretty impressed and intimated by our presence last time, now let's see if we can scare Panda away from signing the contract.
We need to tell the SOB and Panda Express that we will not stand for a large, unhealthy, unsustainable fast food chains that will bring a commercialized atmosphere to our student union area and misrepresent Chinese cuisine. The vacant space in the student union should be used as a student space, not a commercial space. We could use it for a student run food co-op, a bike maintenance shop, space for performing arts, meditation/prayer space or other benefits to the local community, rather than a large nation-wide chain that will suck money out of our local economy.
Come march in front of the Panda Express meeting in Sproul Hall this Thursday night at 7:30pm. Join the Asian-American, Co-op, environmentalist, progressive, socially conscious and other communities to say no to cultural imperialism and environmental degradation.