In my neighborhood, a Starbucks was proposed for the main street (Frankford Ave.) Starbucks promised an atypical luxury type of Starbucks that only exists in a few cities, but people said, “no” at an April zoning meeting. There was an appeal to the city zoning board, but no one wanted to overturn the neighborhood’s decision.
Every time I walk by the empty storefront on Frankford Ave, I wonder if we made the wrong decision. Why are we so binary in when we approach something like this Imagine if our response to Starbucks wasn’t “We don’t like you, get the fuck out” but, “We don’t like you, do these things and you can move in.” We could have asked for anything and it was on Starbucks to meet those demands. We could have asked for:
- 75% of this store’s employees must have lived in the neighborhood for at least a year.
- All teachers and post off workers get from coffee from 7 – 8 AM.
- Give $250,000 to the rec center or palmer park annually.
- Public trashcans that you maintain in service within a 3 block radius of the store.
- The restroom is not customers only, but anyone can stop in its use.
- School supplies for every student in the neighborhood.
Listen, I don’t care about Starbucks. I drink at Steep and Grind or Mammoth Coffee these days. I just think it is disingenuous when people say they only want the local coffee shop. La Colombe is a great and worth $100 million dollars. It’s long stopped being your corner coffee shop.
I actually think the analysis is pretty simple. We have a neighborhood that a billion-dollar corporation wants to do business in. The billion-dollar corporation has far more money than should be allowed, so let’s take it from them. Instead of just saying “No, get off my lawn,” let’s “ok, but give us XYZ.”