426, Tesco Petrol Bombsky

Description

This 25mm button badge uses the image that Banksy did and sold at the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair as a benefit for the Bristol, Stokes Croft protestors against the invasion of Tesco despite overwhelming local opposistion.

Tesco opened their  new store with a strong security presence in Stokes Croft despite massive local opposition in mid April. On Thursday 21st April, Police suspected that people in the Telepathic Heights squat opposite were preparing firebombs with a view to attacking the shop. Whether this is actually the case remains to be seen. However the decision to break into the squat to apprehend the alleged fire bombers precipitated a chain of events that led to full scale riots in Stokes Croft, with a presence of more than 160 riot police on the streets of Stokes Croft and Montpelier.

The violence led to the smashing up of the front of the store. A sense of injustice has been brewing over many months over the way that Tesco had managed to open their store despite strong local opposition. (For a fuller account, go to the Campaign/missionpage). It seems clear that Tesco, while perhaps obeying the letter of the law, had failed to heed their own maxim that “Community is at the heart of everything we do.”

http://www.prsc.org.uk/politics.htm