Just in time for its 11th 
anniversary, Michigan-based 
craft beer bar HopCat rolled 
out a new name for its award-
winning Crack Fries on Jan. 
14. The newly deemed “Cos-
mik Fries” were the center of 
anniversary celebrations Sat-
urday, during which free fries 
and a fries eating contest were 
offered at each HopCat loca-
tion.
According to Joe Sonheim, 
director of marketing for Bar-
Fly Ventures, the decision to 
change the name was made in 
early December by executives 
at BarFly Ventures, the parent 
company of HopCat. Although 

the name Crack Fries was 
originally meant to be clever, 
executives realized it could be 
insensitive towards the crack 
epidemic and drug addiction, 
Sonheim explained.
“When we started the com-
pany, ‘crack fries’ was certainly 
meant to be a tongue-in-cheek 
reference,” 
Sonheim 
said. 
“But as the company grew and 
expanded into different mar-
kets, such as Detroit, we’ve had 
to figure out who we are in the 
community. We’ve gotten good 
feedback from the community 
… based on that feedback, we 
decided it was the right thing 
to do to change the name.”
Despite the name change, a 
December statement by Hop-
Cat assures customers the 

ingredients and recipe of the 
fries, named one of the ten best 
French fries in America, will 
remain the same.
The new name for the signa-
ture side — Cosmik Fries — is 
inspired by the song “Cosmik 
Debris” by Frank Zappa, one of 
founder Mark Sellers’s favor-
ite musicians. Featuring lyrics 
about a mystery man selling a 
magical substance made “with 
the oil of Aphrodite” and “the 
dust of the Grand Wazoo,” he 
says the song, and thus the 
new name, is more reflective of 
HopCat’s image.
“A big part of HopCat is our 
relationship to music,” Son-
heim said. “(The song “Cos-
mik Debris”) is a little weird, 
a little out there, definitely fun 

and we thought it was a pretty 
good tie-in to who we are. It 
speaks to the culture and vibe 
of our HopCat restaurant.”
The 
name 
change 
has 
received much attention, even 
receiving coverage by nation-
al platforms like Fox News. 
Online reactions to the new 
name have been mixed.
Some customers expressed 
the move conforms to a trend 
of political correctness. In one 
tweet which has been liked by 
500 people and retweeted 48 
times at the time of publica-
tion, Liv Brosofske, a student 
at Western Michigan Univer-
sity, claimed the name change 
is another example of oversen-
sitivity.

On Wednesday, the University 
of Michigan’s Barger Leadership 
Institute invited Zilka Joseph, 
internationally acclaimed poet, 
author and teacher, to lead a 
poetry 
workshop 
in 
Weiser 
Hall for advanced fellows in a 
BLI cohort called the Mindful 
Leader 
Program. 
Joseph’s 
seminar focused on channeling 
creativity to engage with our 
lives and work.
The Mindful Leader program 
is a contemplative practices 
program 
composed 
of 
a 
10-person cohort. The cohort 
engages in mindfulness-related 
discussions, 
workshops 
and 
other immersive and experiential 
learning 
opportunities. 
It 
provides 
participants 
with 
diverse approaches to cultivating 
mindfulness, along with the 
language and skills to practice 
habits of mindful leadership.
BLI 
Director 
Ramaswami 
Mahalingam introduced Joseph 
to the cohort and praised not 
only her poetry, but also her 
ability to immediately connect 
to students and explain nuanced 
poetic concepts efficiently.

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INDEX
Vol. CXXVIII, No. 50 
©2018 The Michigan Daily

N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

CL A S S I F I E DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 B - 6 B
michigandaily.com

For more stories and coverage, visit

GOVERNMENT 

BEN ROSENFELD
Daily Staff Reporter

HopCat renames its signature side, 
celebrates over a decade of operation

Local restaurant gives out promotional fries, goes from ‘Crack’ to ‘Cosmik’

BLI poetry 
workshop 
examines 
creativity

CAMPUS LIFE

Acclaimed author, poet 
Zilka Joseph oversees 
mindfulness discussions

NESMA DAOUD
Daily Staff Reporter 

See WHITMER, Page 3A

Follow The Daily
on Instagram: 
@michigandaily

Whitmer’s 
directives
target bias 
on the job

New orders to protect 
members of LGBTQ 
community, women

Since her inauguration on 
Jan. 1, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer 
has taken action to reform and 
increase access to institutions of 
government for minorities and 
women, particularly through the 
use of executive directives.
In the last several weeks, two 
directives in particular have 
generated 
conversation 
over 
their potential impact on the 
economy and people of Michi-
gan.
The first directive, signed Jan. 
7, prohibits any discrimination 
or withholding of opportunities 
from government employees on 
the basis of sexual orientation 
or gender identity. The second, 
signed Jan. 8, intends to limit 
wage inequality by prohibiting 
state agencies and employers 
from asking about applicants’ 
previous salaries until a job and 
salary offer has been made.
These orders are among ten 
signed by Gov. Whitmer in her 
first several weeks in office, 
aimed 
towards 
demonstrat-
ing her administration’s intent 
to resolve social disparities in 
income and employment.
EMMA RICHTER/Daily
HopCat, located on Maynard Street, enters its 11th year of business in Ann Arbor.

CLAIRE HAO
Daily Staff Reporter 

Read more online at 
michigandaily.com

Though 
marijuana 
is 
now legal in Michigan, the 
Department of Licensing and 
Regulatory Affairs does not yet 
provide commercial licenses 
for 
recreational 
marijuana 
dispensaries. 
Following 
the 
Dec. 6 legalization, local and 
out-of-state 
businesses 
have 
identified a gray area in the law, 
allowing them to gift marijuana 
with the sale of other products 
such as sweets, snacks and even 
art.
Smoke’s 
Chocolate, 
an 
Ann 
Arbor-based 
business 
created 
by 
Marc 
Bernard, 
has capitalized on the period 
between 
legalization 
of 

marijuana and the opening of 
recreational 
dispensaries 
in 
Michigan, according to Jack 
Groom, Business senior and 
head of development at Smoke’s 
Chocolate.
“On the day after legalization 
(Bernard) put his website up, 
just taking advantage of the way 
the law is written and how it 
exists, relying on precedent out 
of several different states where 
people have employed a similar 
business model,” Groom said.
According to the Michigan 
Taxation and Regulation of 
Marihuana 
Act, 
gifting 
of 
marijuana is permissible in a 
restricted amount and manner.

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thursday, January 24, 2019

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

Businesses
offer gifts of
marijuana to
customers

VP of Government Relations talks
strategy, forming relationships 

ALEC COHEN/Daily
Vice President for Government Relations Cynthia Wilbanks discusses getting acquainted with new members of congress in an interview with The Daily Monday.

BUSINESS

Smoke’s Chocolate finds loophole in 
regulations using medical cannabis

ATTICUS RAASCH
Daily Staff Reporter

The Daily sits down with Cynthia Wilbanks to discuss lobbying efforts

LEAH GRAHAM
Daily News Editor
ALYSSA MCMURTRY
Daily Staff Reporter

See GOVERNMENT, Page 3A

the business b-side

The Michigan Daily sat down with 
Cynthia Wilbanks, vice president of 
the Office of Government Relations, 
to discuss the University of Michi-

gan’s efforts to work with officehold-
ers and agencies at the local, state and 
federal level. Wilbanks and her office 
manage interactions with govern-
ment officials in regard to legislative 
and regulatory policy that affects the 
University and its programs.
Organization including corpora-
tions, political action committees and 
nonprofits hire lobbyists to influence 

government officials and agencies by 
advocating for or against certain poli-
cies. Wilbanks said the University’s 
strategy for working with lawmakers 
and government agencies takes a per-
sonal approach.
“In this office, it’s relationships 
that are really the foundation of 
our work,” Wilbanks said. “We use 
opportunities that are both formal 

and informal to establish those rela-
tionships and they come in lots of dif-
ferent settings, so it’s not always going 
up to the state capital, it’s not always 
visiting with offices in Washington. 
It’s a variety of ways that we work 
on those relationships and the same 
is true for the community relations 
work.

See POETRY, Page 3A

See HOPCAT, Page 3A

