Warning Shot

Starbucks Coffee Company has asked the Rat City Rollergirls (RCR)—a Seattle-based roller-derby league—to modify its logo. According to Starbucks spokeswoman Stacey Krum, the league's logo has a "very similar look and feel" to the Starbucks logo.

Both logos feature a picture of a woman surrounded by a circle with stars on either side, although the woman featured in the Starbucks ad is a mermaid while the woman in the RCR logo looks like Bettie Page with a black eye.

Starbucks has previously sued a comic-book artist, a Chinese coffee company, and a Texas bar owner over trademark issues.

"They're claiming their mark is so famous, any use of sans serifs, stars, and circles is a dilution of their mark," says Quinn Heraty, RCR's attorney. Heraty says she's not aware of any intention on the Rollergirls' part to mimic the Starbucks logo. "Why wouldn't they have put in a beat-up mermaid instead of a rollergirl?" she asks. JONAH SPANGENTHAL-LEE

Triple Shot

A 22-year-old Snohomish County man is being held on $350,000 bail for allegedly shooting three people on Saturday, May 24, at Seattle's Folklife Festival.

At around 6:15 p.m., the man allegedly got into a scuffle near the International Fountain, grabbed a gun from his ankle holster, and discharged one shot. The bullet hit one man in the nose, passed through another man's arm, and hit a woman in the thigh.

The gunshot did little to disrupt the festival's drum circles and Estonian folk dancers. JONAH SPANGENTHAL-LEE

"Oomph"

On May 22, the city's Department of Planning and Development convened a forum of architects and neighborhood activists to help rewrite citywide design guidelines for proposed multifamily and commercial buildings. The new rules, if adopted by the city council, could replace design standards adopted in 1993 and override more-recently adopted guidelines applied to individual neighborhoods.

"It doesn't need to be fixed if it isn't broken, but if it can be improved, we can do that," said Cheryl Sizov, an urban planning manager for the DPD. Key areas that require "more oomph," says Sizov, are how buildings should be designed on major arterials, how to mitigate the impact of long building facades, and what rules should apply to locations of citywide significance.

A consultant firm, which was allocated up to $90,000 to oversee the process, will incorporate comments from the meeting into a proposal for public comment, says Sizov. The city council could codify the new guidelines by early next year. DOMINIC HOLDEN