In our recent story about where queer folks go to meet and to party in Eugene, we wrote about Blairally, a vintage arcade bar, and referred to it as a “barcade.”

The article had been posted only a few hours when an email with the subject line, “Use of Barcade TM by Eugene Weekly” hit the editor’s inbox.

“Barcade,” like Kleenex or Zipper or Styrofoam is a brand name. It is in fact Barcade® and the folks from Barcade® are aggressive and litigious in their defense of the term.

They helpfully ‘splained to us in the email how to insert information into direct quotes using brackets. Eugene Weekly uses a mix of AP and Chicago styles so we do use brackets to insert information. Most daily newspapers use parentheses, which hopefully “Shani Karantzalis Intellectual Property Support Manager Barcade®” knows when sending them cease and desist letters, since the link provided in the email calls that incorrect. AP actually recommends  writing around awkward insertions of parentheses.

(It was not in a direct quote,  and as to telling Barcade® if we received a press release using  Barcade®’s “trademark or if the usage is a direct quote from a representative of another business”  — that’s not how journalism works; Google® shield law).

The nearest Barcade® is Los Angeles, so folks of Lane County, you will simply have to make do with “bar arcades” or “arcade bars” locally like Blairally, Level Up and Big City.

We have updated the story. The full email is below.

Comments are closed.