The story
Henk de Vries began selling marijuana in the year 1970 at the Kralingen Music Festival, a pop festival at Kralingse Bos.
In 1975 he converted his grandmother's brothel in Amsterdam's red-light district to The Bulldog coffeeshop and began to expand slowly. Henk asked ex-pat Australian artist Harold "the Kangaroo" Thornton to paint some signage on the front of The Bulldog first Coffeeshop Nr.90, so called because of its address at Number 90 Oudezijds Voorburgwal. The mural helped the coffeeshop become a magnet for backpackers and tourists and its reputation grew.
In 2001 the company began distributing internationally. That year, Richard Lee opened a Bulldog in Oakland, California.
In 2010 The Bulldog was ordered to cease the sale and distribution of its own brand of energy drink, following a lengthy legal dispute with Red Bull GmbH, makers of Red Bull. At appeal, the judge ruled favourably of The Bulldog to allow marketing of their energy drink. In a lawsuit concerning a domain name with an appeal period that expired in January 2013, the judge ruled that the logo was not original, because it was based on a bulldog cartoon character designed in 1940 by copyright owner Walt Disney.
From Wikipedia’s article on The Bulldog, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4