Ok so I’m planning to open a used bookstore. I wanted to open this month, but the storefront I was renting the owner totally sold it. There was a string of robberies across the street culminating in the bike shop owner being beaten into a comatose state, which made the guy near there real nervous about his property. He hinted to me early last month about maybe selling, and he got a great offer which he says he couldn’t refuse and he apologized. My lawyer friend called him up and told him about some break-lease clause so he ended up giving me double my deposit back. The new owners are planning to flip the property to a franchise.
So anyway I am looking around and have visited a couple of other places. I’m going to see a few more today, but I had my heart set on this one place in particular. It is very cheap and totally fits into my idea of a small dusty old used bookstore, and they don’t mind any shelves or whatever I’ll need to put up. But they didn’t want me to sign the lease right away because they had other small biz owners want to break it within a few months. They advised me to walk around the neighborhood and really get a feel for what I’d be getting into.
Folks, I am in this neighborhood quite frequently, I shop at the thrift store there all the time, go to the market near there all the time, etc. I have friends who live in the gentrified section and in the hood section and neither have complained about the nighborhood other than the ratty schools. It’s a racially mixed neighborhood, unlike most of Cleveland. So I was thrilled to find this place.
But I took their advice and walked around one day after a doctor vist with my son Todd. I went into the library, and was shocked. You have to walk through a metal detector right at the door, and to use the bathroom! you have to get a key from a librarian. There were 3 security guard-types and I think they had guns. Least they acted like they did, tapping their holsters/holster area the way some police folk do, you know? None of this was about national security; I asked a librarian what was up. He told me it was because of all the homeless people and poor people hanging out in the library all day. I said I don’t see anyone doing anything wrong and he said Just you wait. Before I could continue some pre-teens came in, and one of the guards immediately marched up to them and told them to Get Out. They just resignedly shrugged and turned around without saying anything, but before the outer door slammed shut one of them shouted a@@hole! Which I might have too under those circumstances. The librarian turned to me and said We don’t allow children and teens in the library without an adult during school hours. Then he smiled down at my son with this totally creepy if-your-mom-wasn’t-here-we’d-toss-you-out-too smile. I just said, Oh, all punked-out and quiet-like.
I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to say, and I was kinda scared if I made an issue out of it or a complaint the guards would come hassle me too. So me and Todd went to the children’s section…and we were the only people there. I know most of the moms in this neighborhood work outside the home but there are stay-home moms there. It was no surprise they wouldn’t come to that library, who would want to bring their kids to such a hostile place. We left shortly thereafter.
So that spurred me to look for another storefront, and the owners of that one were not surprised at my response although they took it the wrong way. They said part of the reason they rent it out so cheap is because of the security costs anyone renting it would have to incurr. But it weighs on my mind. That place is so perfect for me, and I love the neighborhood. and I think about the people who live there, not being welcomed right in their neighborhood library. Then I think, I have so rarely met a snotty or mean-spirited librarian before then, even in racist and classist Cleveland, so maybe that librarian was worn out by alot of, I don’t know, off the wall behavior from the library’s clientle. I am torn. Part of me says I should just go for it. Part of me says be sensible and keep looking. What do you think?
