Tomorrow is the 2008 election for Oakland City Council. A central issue that candidates are addressing is the high level of concern among residents about crime and safety in various neighborhoods of Oakland. Many residents of West Oakland are hopeful that a new council member can resolve this problem in a positive way that builds the community up.

While it is certainly true that issues of crime and safety are high in West Oakland, these same problems have been used in past as excuses for supermarket operators to not locate in the community. For this reason we at People’s Grocery believe that it is paramount that we create a food retail model that can navigate the problems of the inner-city through creative and community-based approaches to enabling a safe shopping environment where customers can enjoy themselves and where our business can thrive to support local jobs and provide benefit and value to the community.

We have built extensive ties and relationships in West Oakland over the last six years and have come to understand that successfully preventing theft in West Oakland depends on an approach that utilizes respectful and positive relationships as the basis for community engagement. We have experience doing this, especially back when we used to post the Mobile Market in some of the toughest and most notorious street corners in all of West Oakland. We were never robbed a single time during those four years. In fact, many of the same young people on the streets who are often characterized as “hoodlums” and “thugs” used to come on to the Mobile Market to buy fruits and juices. Some offered to watch our back if anyone caused any trouble.

Without being naive that our grocery store will face problems of crime and safety, we believe that we can use a similar approach based on our relationship, combined with smarter and more creative strategies, to engender safety for our customers, staff and community. Creating a safe environment is accomplished in various ways. Oakland recently approved spending $7.7 million to increase its police force. This is perhaps one way of creating more safety. Yet, many people question whether increased policing is enough to create a safe city, and advocate for more community involvement. Throughout the U.S., urban planners have focused attention on utilizing street design concepts to facilitate crime reduction through increasing street activity and creating an atmosphere of safety. These principles, reflected in Dean Brennan and Al Zelinka’s book, “SafeScape”, can work to compliment the City’s efforts, and help to bring about change.

People’s Grocery will utilize SafeScape Principles in our site design and planning process and will implement the following strategies:

–Allow for an open and active storefront
–Create outdoor seating area and programming
–Provide ample lighting on all sides of the property
–Coordinate group walks and bike rides to the store
–Offer free shuttle rides with a $25 purchase
–Utilize community policing resources
–Engage our community partners
–Provide ways for everyone to participate
–Increase pedestrian street activity

When the Subway fast food restaurant opened on 7th St in West Oakland it was robbed two days after it opened its doors to the public. Many have pointed to that incident as proof that West Oakland just isn’t safe for business. Yet few have taken the time to consider what underpinning factors may have led to Subway’s unfortunate targeting. One must ask: Does Subway convey a message of caring and responsibility to the community? Does Subway engage with the community in a way that provides exceptional value that all can recognize and appreciate? Does Subway substantively contribute to the economic needs of the community through living wage jobs and other forms of support? Does Subway have a history of meaningful involvement in the community?

In general, the answer to all of these questions is no. The perception of Subway by those who robbed it was more likely that Subway didn’t care about them, their lives and their future. So why should they care about Subway? I propose that it is this dynamic of being undervalued as a human being that leads one to commit crime. If we seek to engage in more dignified ways we may find some surprising results.

People’s Grocery is striving to create a different kind of grocery store - in every way possible. How we deal with and respond to crime and safety may become the defining characteristic of our legacy.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 5:58 pm and is filed under People's Grocery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.