October 12, 2007

• The Coffee Shop Extortion - Friday Fiction

  I could see what was going on; I could see it very clearly.  In this transitional neighborhood, renovation and revitalization on the one hand mixed with the old and young street characters of poverty and homelessness on the other.  The coffeeshop catered to the newer residents, it wasn’t a Starbucks, but something like it.  “The Science of the Bean” they said about themselves.  As well, they catered to people driving through towards downtown or towards the highway, which could take you any which way you wanted.  They had their own parking lot, only a block away.  They did a pretty good business.

   

  And they did a pretty good job of politely asking “old Edgewood” not to solicit in front of the store, and discouraging “the poor” from coming in with requests for free stuff.  It’s not that they couldn’t afford to donate, just that they didn’t want paying customers to be turned off, by vagabonds and hobos (can we call them hobos?) 

   

  They weren’t completely unfair.  They would allow a person to come in, use the bathroom and leave.  Or if someone came in with a handful of small coins asking for change, really the reverse of change (“can I have a quarter”), they would painstakingly count every penny and when it turned out a penny short, they would graciously take one from the “take one, leave one” bowl to round it out. 

   

  But then if the “vagrant” turned on the way out and asked if he could trouble them for a glass of ice water, they would discourage it. 

   

  “Ice water is 70 cents.”

   

  “What about without ice?”

   

  “We have ice water and then we have bottled water.”

   

  And the street person would say, “ok” and leave, feeling perhaps a little discouraged from coming back.

   

  Sometimes they would hold meetings here related to coffee shop business, an interview for a prospective employee, or a meeting with a potential supplier of pastries.  So it wasn’t so surprising to see the manager sitting down with a fellow when I came in one morning.  But this conversation seemed less hospitable than usual.  I heard her say, “that isn’t the way..” and I heard him say, “that’s all that I’m asking.”  She had a stern face, and so did he. 

   

  This same day, coincidentally, I noticed all of this during the hours in which I occupied a certain corner, writing, there was an increase in vagrant activity.  It was always someone different, but there seemed to be more soliciting in front of the store, and more requests for water or free coffee or using the bathroom, helping themselves to sugar. nothing illegal (other than maybe a little sugar stealing – he could say that it looked free to him), and never the same person twice. 

   

  But this man speaking to the woman I've assumed is the manager, wasn’t dressed like you would expect a vendor seeking business.  He had flip flops and jeans and a long sleeved T with a number, like a jersey of some sort, not oversized, not hoodlum looking.  He was black, like the old guard of the neighborhood, but also not unlike a percentage of the new guard and vendors as well.  In fact he seemed to be stern, but with every indication that he was trying to be professional, and respectable, just a little underdressed.

   

  After their talk, in which, as the body language suggested to me, they agreed to disagree (and maybe continue the discussion at another time), she brought him out a bagel or something, and he refused it, and then  he left.

   

  All of this made me wonder whether he was trying to extort money maybe to “protect” them from vagrants.  Maybe he had an army of locals who would, one by one, just come in and hang out, ruining business by discouraging those white folk, at least, who didn’t want to be asked for money every time they came in to pay what was already too much for a cup of Joe.

   

  And I started to wonder what would I do if I were them?  I’m not sure I could have a coffee shop.  I would feel bad about asking somebody who had so little not to solicit from someone who had much more, but on the other hand, as a customer, I would likely find some place else to go if I was solicited every time I came.  Cause I would hate to say no, and then I would end up giving a lot of money away, only encouraging it more and more.  And am I really helping?  I’d rather pay more taxes and let an agency provide some real help.  Yes, I said it.  I want to pay MORE taxes.  

   

  So, I understood that, right or wrong, keeping the business clear of “street people” was vital to their success.

   

  Would I pay the guy?  If he had organized these people to be persistent in their attempts to disrupt business it could destroy the very science of this bean.  On the other hand, what would happen down the road?  Now you’ve given him resources that he can use against you and others in the neighborhood.  Now, you’ve proven that it works, and he can take that and recruit with it.  Then once he has a good business going, if you start to fight him, he has more at stake.  This is a livelihood now, income he has begun to rely on.  Maybe he has branched out into things that he can sell back to the vagrants that “work” for him.  Drugs?  Now suddenly he’s got a lot at stake and he doesn’t want to go back.  Higher stakes means greater commitment.  He will no longer go down without a real fight.  Violence.  Worst case for them, they get their neighborhood back, albeit the way it used to be.  This is what you create if you don’t fight it early.

   

  So clearly you have to fight it.  That would be my call, even if I couldn’t do it were it my business.

   

  A policeman showed up a little later and spoke to the manager.  He didn't buy anything.  Something was clearly going on here.  I was curious now.  I would have to stick it out to see how they handled this.  I would brave a few solicitations for their sake.  I might even say “no.”

   

  On the other hand, I started thinking; the guy didn’t really look like a hoodlum.  He seemed to be trying very hard to look respectable and to negotiate.  Maybe a front, in order to make a case for himself, should he be charged, or maybe he actually saw himself as a community leader. 

   

  It could be that he thought the long time residents of this community were being shafted by the changes in the neighborhood and that it was not enough that requests to solicit elsewhere were “polite”.  Maybe he believed that the businesses owed something to the original residents.  He could be a community activist who thinks that when a community rises, it should help to bring its long time residents up with it.  These are people who have been accommodating, for the most part, in allowing the science of the bean to develop, and what do they get for it?  They don’t have to be accommodating.  A little goodwill towards the community, “that’s all I’m asking.” (I did hear him say, “that’s all I’m asking”).

   

  If this conflict continued, I knew that I, as a customer, could be brought into this.  At first I imagined myself cutting him off, telling him that I wasn’t going to be a party to his con.  But then, realizing there was something I didn’t know, I thought it might be worth hearing him out, to ascertain whether his motivation was true community activism.  I still wouldn’t necessarily agree with his tactics, but I have sympathy for his (theoretical) constituency.  And I could tell him all of this.

   

  When you are a writer, and your job is understanding people, it’s amazing what you can figure out in merely a day from observing so little. 

   

  The next day I returned and when I walked into the coffee shop HE was there again.  What IS going on here, I thought.  I sat down, booted my computer, settled in and watched.  He went into the back, like HE OWNED THE PLACE.  He got himself some coffee.  Then a couple of construction guys came in, and talked to him.  He pointed to a door and started discussing the repairs.

  • 10:37 am
  • 4 Comments