Saturday, March 26, 2011

The dilemma of the shopowner

If there have been numerous times to provide precedence of:

A small number of members of a subgroup* of the society start frequenting a mainstream bar/coffee.
This subgroup sits there for hours no end, and gets maybe one drink per man, during all that time.
The number enlarges.  This subgroup likes to hangout in big numbers, packs.

The hours get longer, the tables get filled with more of this subgroup, spending minimal amounts of money.
A few months passes, the mainstream customers leave the place.
Place either changes hands for a ridiculously small amount of money, or goes bankrupt.

*Subgroup: Any distinguishable group from 100% of the population, i.e.: women; male engineering students, gymgoers, etc...

Even the place I am sitting in now has that history.

Used to be the best place in town 7 days a week.
It was the place to be for two, three years. Packed to the hilt on the weekends.
Subgroup scouts arrived. Subgroup main force followed.

In six months, the place was empty even on saturdays.
When the mainstream customers went, so did the good views, and not much later, so did the subgroup;
But not before the place changed hands as it was loosing money like crazy.

Subgroup had their scouts scattered around town for some months, eventually the subgroup converged on this one year old popular coffee on the mainstreet.
The place did not survive the summer.

The place I am sitting in struggled for few years, and lately it has been getting better again, good music, good decor, good service and good customers. But it all hangs on a thin thread. Once the scouts arrive....

So why am I asking about the shopowner's dilemma?

When I was walking I noticed that another recently well populated coffee bar was now being populated by this subgroup.
Loud, arrogant, aggressive, and cheap; aggressive and not a pleasant view.
The mainstream customers which held to the place so tightly in the last year have apparently given up.

There always used to be a few regular customers sitting in the place, waiting for the train,
Now, nada.
Subgroup has taken over the place.

The dilemma is this:

When you know that a customer subgroup will not spend like the others, will buy one coffee and drink that one coffee for four hours,
And
When you know that a customer subgroup will bring all the pack to the place, with similar spending habits;

Leaving no place for regular customers who bring in the money
And
Repelling the regular customers who would actually squeeze in the one free small table, by being loud, obnoxious, and extensive unwelcoming/harassing eye contact,

Can you take action against that group of customers?

I do not mean kicking them out, (I would favor that, as history shows that survival is at stake)

But enforcing minimum one drink per hour rule or something?

Can't do that. Customer rights.

So the only thing left for a shopowner is to watch the customers closely.

When the scouts arrive, start looking for a buyer.

If the main force arrives, which is inevitable if your regular customer base includes a few good looking women,

If the main force arrives, sell. Do not wait.


If someone accuses the shopowner for being XXXist,
One has to ask those shitheads if they would pay for the shopowners loss, solely brought upon him because of this one group of customers.
One has to ask those shitheads if the shopowner should lose his livelyhood for the sake of XXXance, XXXity, etc...


Before one accuses me of being XXXist,
The shopowner is not running a charity. He/she is running a business.
Where I come from, a shopowner can come to a customer and say "If you are not drinking anything bro, I will ask you to leave", or just leaves the coffee bar's regular drink on the table and adds it to the bill..

If you cannot say that, or if you cannot do that,
The only thing you can do as a business owner is to sell the business at the first sight of destructive customers, if your regular customers have been repelled and these new customers are treating you as a charity house.

Well, ok, nobody is stopping the businessman from selling, but it just feels good to throw shit at the political correctness mercenaries, as being able to kick out these customers or exert extra costs on them would save the business.

Can't do it. Not correct politically.

Ruining a business? Effing capitalists anyway. 

4 comments:

  1. Lesbians? Gays? French Gays? What plague is this? Fashionable French speaking Spanish Gays? What? Who? Just wondering! 'VJ'

    ReplyDelete
  2. They do not really care about lesbians,

    They hate the guts out of gays, but man-love when being the active one is a-ok,

    None are French, but sometimes speak french

    Very fashionable, making the Jersey shoreists look like kid bums.

    None are Spanish, but in public they use names like Alessandro, Giorgio, Julio etc.

    Not spanish, but has spanish names, not french, but can claim being french, wants to kill gays, but butthexing another man is ok; in short.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Muslims in other words. Especially north African ones? Turks like you?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Doug1,

    Even the Finnish police told the presses that they are not to use the origins of criminals other than "foreign background", as it will cause racial profiling (looking at the stats directly, without the mainstream media tells that racial profiling would be the easiest/best way to combat crime...) so who am I to point fingers.

    ReplyDelete