Also, notice the interesting and sad quote from Peralta. I am frankly a bit surprised that he would be quoted as saying “The community should not have to settle for less because it deserves the best." What is he suggesting? That our locally grown coffee shops are not the best? In my mind, Starbucks is fine and gives a good balance to the retail on 37th, but we should note that chains send their profits to corporate headquarters while the profit from locally owned stores stays in the community with owners who live and work here. It's called the multiplier effect. For every dollar you spend at Starbuck's, the majority of the profit gets sent away. But compare that to every dollar you spend at Letty's or Expresso 77. Those profits get respent by the owner who lives in the community, shops at local stores and eats at local restaurants. That money in turn gets spent by employees and owners of that establishment, and so on. So every dollar spent in a local store is 'multiplied' many times over every dollar spent in a national chain. I wish our politicians would work as hard to help local stores as they did to get Starbucks in the 'hood. Don't get me wrong, I am not against Starbucks being here - I just want folks to be educated about how their buying decisions affect the neighborhood.
Not so fast!
I agree with you on Lety's and Espresso 77 being "locally owned" in the sense that the owners (as far as I can surmise from comments on this board) live in the neighborhood. But I don't believe you can extend that logic to every other shop/store in the neighborhood. I've seen a few instances of stores (no names!) where the customers/employees are waiting outside early morning for the owners to show up - the owner is driving in to the neighborhood from somewhere else. So how do you define "local"? Jackson Heights? Queens? New York State? New York/New Jersey Metropolitan area?
If I were a young teenager today looking for part time employment - after school, summertime, etc., I would choose Starbuck's over any other crummy job working for some "salt of the earth" locally owned business, and I'm sure you would also. Which place would pay me more? Starbuck's, the corner "bodega", or an "ethnic" restaurant? Which place has the better health care plan? Which place has the better stock option/employee stock purchase plan? Also, the employees of Starbuck's will have even more money to spend locally, due to higher relative wages, compared to what the "locally owned" business owner would most likely pay.
Lastly, many of the "locally owned" business are typically looking to pay
the lowest possible wages they can. Yes, that is obvious "code speak" for another topic! Starbuck's can't play that game as easily as the "locally owned" businesses can! As for Starbuck's "stealing from the employee tip jar", I'm aware of that issue, and that's also another topic!
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