We just don’t count

Alex Gromow has been in the hospitality industry since he was five years old.  Growing up in a family restaurant business, Gromow learned to work hard to achieve his goals. He moved to NYC after graduating college and worked in some of the finest restaurants, hotels and private clubs in the city.  As General Manager, he worked up and down the east coast in several Yacht, Country and City clubs. Eventually, Gromow tired of having a thousand owner/bosses as is common in the private club industry and moved to Raleigh to be near his two sons.  Not being able to completely retire, he decided to be his own boss and start a food cart business. It suited him since he still enjoys serving quality food and since it would be limited to two nights a week.  All went well and his cart developed quite a reputation as the best street food around.

Mr. Gromow spoke at the July 2 City Council meeting: 

I’m here to speak to the ordinances passed by this body regarding the shuttering of over a dozen small businesses on Glenwood South.

I’d like to bring home two points.

Point One 

Police leadership has somehow convinced you that the street food vendors on Glenwood South are part of either the noise or the violence problem on weekends.  I’m really not sure which of these problems we’re party to.  That seems to be a moving target. My first point is to let you know that this is a false narrative. I don’t care how many decades of experience Raleigh PD leadership brings to the table.  They have not spent the last nearly ten years ON THE AVENUE almost every weekend as I have. Let me emphasize this.  I am out there and the vendors are not pockets of seething violence as they would have you believe.

I have lost count of how many young people I have helped get home at the end of the night by charging their phones so they can contact friends, family or Ubers. How many IDs and wallets I’ve returned to people by finding them on Facebook.  How many young women congregate near us while they wait for their rides because we are pockets of civilization and safety at the end of the night.

Closing us at 1:15 is akin to making a lunch counter close at noon.  It has killed our businesses.  The whole business endeavor is now almost unsustainable. The measures you have taken are an out and out attack on small business. And it’s all based on a false narrative.  Part of the increased police presence on the Avenue spends their time going from stand to stand harassing and threatening the operators rather than policing the many thousands of club-goers. In one neat trick, they have turned us into the criminals they monitor. With the exception of one Lieutenant who really enjoys this job, the rank and file police officers perform this duty grudgingly. They know how wrong this is.

Point two 

Let us assume that in some alternate reality the hot dog stands are a threat by their very existence as you must have been led to believe. In that case, I question police leadership’s response. In many places, the police follow a motto “To Protect and Serve.” Raleigh PD seems to add “unless you don’t count” to that motto.  If these imaginary violent individuals really exist at our locations at the end of the night, shouldn’t they protect and serve the rest of us who are either trying to make a living or trying to buy a hot dog?

It seems to me that gas station convenience stores get robbed all the time.  Raleigh PD’s answer would be to shut them down. Banks get robbed so shut down the banks, it’s easier.  Crabtree Valley mall causes traffic snarls and accidents in December so shorten their hours that month.  Problem solved.   That’s never going to happen.  I know it and you know it because they count. We apparently don’t. So shut us down with your ordinances, but don’t pretend to believe it’s in any way for the public’s safety.  You did it because we’re small enough for you to get away with it. We just don’t count.

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