Hi folks,
We have reached our 5th issue of Street Speech here in Columbus, Ohio. I can't even believe it has gone on this long. It's really quite amazing. We have had no difficult situations arise with vendors that could not be solved on our own. But, today was sort of an interesting circumstance. Story.
The downtown business association in Columbus has a copy of our vendor guidelines and have told us they will watch the vendors for anything that does not seem appropriate. Right or wrong as that may be, Tristan and myself cannot watch every corner of the street all the time and we don't have enough vendors at this time for them to police themselves. We pretty much function on honesty and trust. Generally, it works great. No problems so far.
I got a call today from someone with the downtown area saying that she went to buy a paper from a vendor and then was handed a pencil rather than a paper. She called us and let us know what had happened. Tristan and I went down to the courthouse to check it out. Upon approaching him he turned away and started putting his stuff away. Then when he knew we were coming towards him he tried to sell us a pencil. Seriously... I told him who we were and he acted like we never met. I asked him to give me his badge because he was violating his contract with us that stated he would not do this. He asked for a warning and this may have been to harsh, but I was thinking in the moment and just wanted the badge back. Anyways, he finally consented and said lets walk down the street. I was against this, but before I could say anything Tristan said that's fine. We were assuming he didn't want to be embarrassed by having his badge removed in front of the people he had received donations from. That is very possible. So, we walk down the street. He starts walking faster and I ask him where he is planning to do this and he points to the corner. Then he crosses the street and I ask for his badge one more time and he yells back, "Leave me alone man!" "Stay away from me!"
I really don't know what to do with this. I do not want someone out there with a badge selling pencils. Street papers are a good thing and not very expensive and we have put a ton of time into this thing. I am really quite upset. Do I call the police? Do I try and find him again? Tell the downtown business association to keep a watch out for him. I have a very good relationship with the woman that is part of that group. Do I just let it go?
Please, let me know your thoughts.
Brandon
Friday, July 11, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Yikes. I know this would really affect me, too. We've got our own vendor problems here.
Do you start with temporary badges?
That helps us a LOT. We start with 2-week dated badges and, if someone stays with it, upgrade them to a perm badge. MOST never return.
Now, we recently had a police officer ask us to even date the permanent badges. So, we've started putting an expiry date on them for a year from the time they receive it.
That should help you in the future, that you know a lapsed vendor cannot keep on his scheme indefinitely.
It may be cold comfort, but I don't believe he'll keep this on very long. I bet you may have scared him enough to stop now.
Of course, if he shows up to buy papers, cut off his supply if you choose to. I think the longer he's on the street, the greater chance he loses or ruins his badge and whatever bunk, expired papers he's fronting with won't hold up long.
I'm sorry. I'm learning week to week that these type things are par for the course.
Out of curiosity, if you don't mind:
• Population of Columbus?
• How many dedicated vendors to you have?
• What's your circulation per issue?
I'm just asking since we've been around about the same amount of time.
Chin up, Brandon.
Thanks for the response frenchpress (sorry, I can't remember your name). We had another problem with this same guy. He showed up on the corner of Broad & High st, which is RIGHT downtown in the middle of everything. And it has only been like 3 or 4 days since we saw him last.
The good thing is that he was spotted and approached by another vendor, who scared him away.
So, now what do we do? I'm about ready to call the police.
Supposedly, we are the 15th largest city and estimates I have read range from 750k-1.25 million people in Columbus. So, that's a rough size.
In 5 months we've had about 40 vendors come through the training. No steady sellers, but about 3 or 4 people that have really latched on to the paper as a source of hope and purpose. Any big seller we get they generally stop selling after a couple weeks for some reason. We've had people sell around 300 papers in a few weeks, so we know it works. We print 1,000 and get rid of about 800 of them, 500 of which are used for marketing mainly.
Best,
Brandon
Post a Comment