Downtown Retailing Competitor's Letter Angers New Business -- Store Owners Say Suppliers Threatened

Downtown Seattle retailers tend to live by the motto that "good competition is good for everyone."

But a new store near Pike Place Market has fueled a public dispute between some prominent small-business owners.

Jay Ashberg, owner of Seattle Shirt, a localchain of three stores that sells souvenir shirts, opened Pike St. Trading two weeks ago with business partner Stephen Cohen.

Near the intersection of First Avenue and Pike Street, the store occupies a prime location across from the Pike Place Market in what was once the Deja Vu strip club and a tavern.

Pike St. Trading, designed with a Gold Rush-era theme, sells everything from coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets to stuffed bears, Northwest wood sculptures and music boxes that play folk tunes such as "Home on the Range."

Ashberg, Cohen and other downtown retailers hope the store will help turn around the Pike Street area, where tourists often encounter aggressive panhandlers.

But at least one business owner is not happy about having new kids on the block.

In January, an estimated 20 suppliers from whom Ashberg and Cohen planned to buy products received a letter from Seattle businessman Michael Brotman.

Brotman, the brother of Costco executive Jeff Brotman, owns and operates Simply Seattle, a competing local gift and novelty chain with five locations. Simply Seattle's flagship store is at First Avenue and Pine Street, about a block away from Pike St. Trading.

"Very simply stated, if you chose to sell your product to our new competitor (I believe they will call themselves Pike Street Mercantile), we will make every effort NOT to buy your line," the letter said.

The letter contended that Pike St. Trading "carves up the pie unneccessarily" and wouldn't "add anything to our neighborhood other than more of what we are already doing."

Ashberg and Cohen say they were negotiating last year with Brotman to buy his business, but decided to suspend talks until later this year so they could concentrate on opening Pike St. Trading.

Ashberg says that only one of the suppliers who received the letter backed out of selling products to Pike St. Trading. It's unclear whether Brotman has stopped doing business with the others.

For his part, Brotman says his letter was not intended to threaten suppliers but to request that they not sell the same products to both stores.

But Ashberg and Cohen say things got personal.

The letter stated that "the people opening this new store are notorious for knocking off good designs from many of you. Why hand them your product for their sinister purposes?"

Ashberg and Cohen say they would not rule out making a bid to buy out Brotman at some later date. But other than trading curt voice-mail messages about the letter, they've had no contact.

Brotman refuses to discuss the possibility of selling his business and insists that Ashberg, Cohen and the suppliers who received his letter have blown things out of proportion.

"Most people take competition as part of the landscape," Brotman says. "It's not unusual. Jay and I have known each other for a long time. I don't know why he took it personally. I think he is overreacting."

Ashberg says if Brotman's letter had simply called for loyalty from suppliers, he would view that as just business. But this was different, according to Ashberg.

"He went on to attack my character," Ashberg says, "and that goes over the line."

Robert Marshall Wells' phone: 206-464-2412. E-mail: rwells@seattletimes.com