Here’s an interesting situation… in a depressing kinda way. Last week I was working on a post regarding James Karagiannis and his ever-growing Ice Creamcycle business. Then, on Friday, I got a frantic Instant Message from James that read, “I just want to scream.” “Uh-oh”, I thought… “What was going on?” I decided to give James a ring, even though I was heading to MASH Bash and didn’t want to wreck the mood before I got there. When James picked up, he started to say things like, “How am I supposed to do business in this city when I’m so limited by where I can travel? I can’t be on Main Street downtown, I can’t be on Chippewa, I can’t be at the Inner Harbor, I can’t be at the Erie Basin Marina… why is it that I can’t get a permit to go to where the people are? Elmwood’s great… but I want to grow my business.”
After talking to James, he made it clear that with all of the restrictions, he was pretty much stuck on Elmwood. He told me that the police told him that heading west of Richmond would make him a target. He doesn’t do much business on Hertel. He needed to find new places to go where people would buy his ice cream. I asked James to sum up his frustrations:
“O jeez, i cant sum my frustration up in two short paragraphs.
“Basically, from my point of view, I don’t have an original business but I do have one that hasn’t been around in this city for a very long time. The permit system in this city may work fine for the typical vendor but it’s extremely prohibitive for me since my bikes are mobile and because I don’t hang out in any one spot for an extended period of time. I’m a go-getter, I put 20-25 miles on that bike each day – I ride around looking for groups of people and ride right up to them. It’s honest work, at times it’s exhausting, but I really enjoy it.
“The City peddler’s permit is good for anywhere but downtown (+$315) or the parks (+600/yr 3 year min.) Buffalo Place would not give me the time of day until I got help from a lawyer, then they finally changed their policy to ‘allow’ me but they added in even more restrictions (not near other vendors, cant stop, no canal, 3 blocks away from the square, no Chippewa) which basically makes the permit useless, so why should I have to pay for it? Buffalo Place told me a while back that the bikes don’t fit in with what their vision of downtown should be and that they didn’t want to open the floodgates to other bike based businesses by allowing me down there. Olmsted informed me that they wouldn’t even sell me the permit because they don’t want competition. Even if they were to make it available, I’m not a park vendor… I cut through on my way to other places and happen to sell along the way. I’m not going to pass up a group of people because they’re over some boundary. And people wouldn’t understand, nor would they care, if I told them I cant sell to them there.
“On top of that, add up every other special permit fee from festivals, etc. and I could easily be facing 3-4-5,000 $s worth of fees — to sell $1-2 ice cream. Insane. How much do people think I’m selling? My livelihood is big groups of people… shut me out, by making it cost prohibitive, and my biz model is shot. Elmwood is good to me, but it can’t support 2-3 bikes let alone the 5 I hoped to get it to this year. There are security issues in other neighborhoods which really limit my hours and reach. And other neighborhoods are just slow all around. Olmsted Parks Conservancy has never given me a problem until last week, now they’re outright harassing us. We don’t target the park, we ride through on our way to the West Side because it’s on the way. If we see people, we’ll sell… but I would never consider myself a park vendor and would like them to work with me. Some woman told me they won’t even consider selling me their permit because they don’t want the competition… but even if they were willing to I feel their fee is way out of line with what I’m charging. Plus they take a percentage.
“I can’t make money in this city if I’m not allowed to go where people are, nor can I make money if I have to spend all of my profits on permits, which are really overpriced. If I have to raise my prices people will stop buying and the business will end.
“Do I continue to go to these restricted places? Absolutely… I have no choice. Have I been playing with fire? Probably, but I am so confused as to why people see me as a threat. I’m friendly. I don’t rip people off. I clean my bikes. It’s ice cream for 4 lousy months of the year for crying out loud.
“The permit inspectors caught up to one of my guys Friday night near Chippewa/Delaware and pulled the permit. I went to City Hall yesterday and they said they suspended it because I was downtown, they slapped me with a fine, and are making me go to some hearing.
“I’m not trying to cause any trouble, I’m just trying to do what I do and it would be really helpful if somebody would just create an all encompassing permit which is priced reasonably and just get off of my back. I started this as a 1 man show, I now have 3 bikes and 8 riders. I never asked anyone for money and I have ambitious plans and hope to turn this into a multi-city thing.
“Am I struggling now? Absolutely. Until I have 10,20,30 bikes in a couple cities I won’t be making any money. Is that a risk I took upon myself? For sure – I’m an entrepreneur. I just wish every single person and organization would just stop trying to dip their hands into my pockets and let me fill them first. I’m in business to make money, not to give it all away. So what if it opens the door for others to do the same. It’s a city!”
Sign the petition to keep James in business in Buffalo.