AND NOW, due to popular demand, NO 7-ELEVEN! -- the Margaret Chabris skit

NO711 performed the skit again at the Tompkins Square Memorial Riot Concert today and again got requests to post the script, so here it is in all its glory:

NO 7-Eleven!!

[the unexpurgated version]

by Sugar Di Abetes with Tess LaCardboard

Characters: 

"Local" a Bodega owner; 

"Lady from Texas" 7-Eleven spokesperson Margaret Chabris; 

"A customer."

Local: You own this 7-Eleven?

Lady from Texas: [Heavy out-of-town accent, very polite] Why no, sir, I am the corporate spokesperson for 7-Eleven.

Local: Oh yeah? Where you from, lady?

Lady: I'm from the Great State of Texas, thank you. Visiting here to check up on one of our target locations.

Local: "Target locations." Look, I own this bodega right here next door -- no not over there, RIGHT HERE NEXT DOOR. What the fuck?

Lady: Well, our corporate headquarters -- in the great state of Texas -- feels that your neighborhood is underserved.

Local: Underserved. I serve them right here. I already gotta compete with the deli down the block and the bagels store across the street and the yuppie cafe on the corner. And the yuppie cafe on the other corner. Yeah, and the yuppie cafe on that corner too. No the other corner over there is a pet store. They don't compete with me -- they serve coffee only to cats and dogs.

Lady: Well sir, [a little testy in her genteel Texas manner] the corporate strategy of the great state of Texas is to target your lovely neighborhood.

Local: Do you have a clue where you are?

Lady: Well it says here on our corporate app-map app that this is the [pronouncing firmly stressing each word with a nod] "East Village." Now that does sound charming doesn't it? Is there a North Village? I'd love to visit there while I'm here, you know. Love to see your charming and beautiful city.

Local: "East Village" [annoyed now]. Lady, this is no "village." This is Loisaida. Alphabet City.

Lady: Loisiada... Now I don't see that in our map app. I mean app map.

Local: [Disgusted] APP MAP APP. [Restraining himself, nicely] Look, you seem like a nice lady. You have a nice app map app. You wear some fancy ropa and I can see you gotta lotta dough. You speak very nice. [Lets loose waving his arms wide] Why the fuck are you trying to drive me out of business?

Lady: Well, [cautiously] sir, [sweetly] you might could convert to a 7-11.

Local: A 7-11. Right next door to a 7-11? What the fuck sense does that make?

Lady: [Explaining as if it makes perfect sense] Well, that's all part of our target strategy, sir. If there's a [consulting her iphone and pronouncing carefully] bo-dee-ga nearby, then there'd be competition. We can't have competition, you know. We won't succeed with competition. Oh no, no, no. Competition, oh competition's very bad. No, no, no. That wouldn't make our corporate headquarters in the great state of Texas very happy. And you know we mustn't make them unhappy in Texas.

Local: Jeez. Why the fuck should I fucking care about...

Customer: Mahmud! Washappenin? How you been brother? What's this?

Local: It's the new store. Believe it?

Customer: [To Chabris] This your new store?

Lady: Yes, sir, young man.

Customer: [Pause, looking up and down judiciously, then finally] Your store is fuckin ugly. My advice: turn the fucking lights down. [Walks into the bodega.]

Lady: Oh dear.

Local: So how is my store going to survive if I convert it to a 7-11?

Lady: Well our corporate head quarters in the [both say it together] great state of Texas will subsidize your store until aaaaaallllllll the competition is dead.

Local: And then?

Lady: Well then you know....

Local: You know what?

Lady: Well it's like Starbucks, you know...

Local: Like Starbucks what? We're gonna serve yuppie coffee all day?

Lady: Well you know Starbucks opened oh so many-many stores in their corporate-headquarters-capital-finance-growth-and-investor-service-strategy-consumer-demographic-catch-area, cornered the market and then of course...

Local: Of course what?

Lady: You know...closed the excess.

Local: The excess. That's me.

Lady: We close your store.

Local: That's your strategy.

Lady: From the great state of Texas!

Local: [mutters to himself] (Fuckin outta towners.) How about you wanna buy a bridge, lady...

Lady: Oh, like the Brooklyn Bridge? We bought that and we're very happy about it. Oh yes very happy. Such a pretty bridge. We're planning to put our logo there, so pretty.

Local: [Wipes his hand over his face in exasperation, leaving.] Holy Jesus Mother of God!

Lady: [Plays with her app map app. Occasionally glancing over the audience to her pretty bridge.] Such a pretty bridge, and such a lovely neighborhood. And won’t 711 be a welcome neighborhood friend...?

Incisive comments from the NO 7-Eleven petition

The petition comments have been full of intelligence and succinct eloquence. Of the many brilliant, here are a couple that stood out for me:

From Mark Lepage
Aside from the killing of local businesses and character, and the other pernicious effects of corporate chains, it must be recognized that there is nothing naturally "free market" about this incursion. It is meant to redesign NYC as a massively low-wage, high-rent zone. Locals have every right to resist a backroom-mandated corporate disfiguration of the neighborhoods in which they live and raise their children.

And an exerpt from Adam Weiner:
...While evolutionary change is inevitable and healthy, mass chain invasions as explictly planned (and already executed) by the likes of Subway, 7-11, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts have the effect of diminishing the difference between living in New York City and living (much more cheaply!) in the 'burbs....If you want to drive me and many others out of Manhattan or out of New York City entirely, keep on letting the chains have their way with the city.

If only chain stores would drive people away from New York. Rents would decline, the tax base as well, undermining municipal services like transportation and policing, yet more of the entitled who expect services would leave, and soon we'd be back in the '70's when New York had a wild spirit and its people were here, not to file blithely into stores, be served hand and foot and spend money, but to join in the anarchic edginess of it all. If it didn't include the drug addictions and drug trade, it would be perfect. 

But chain stores will not drive the new New Yorker away. They have so much disposable income that lower costs in the suburbs do not register on them at all. They come to the city primarily to party, to socialize with each other in bars, to get laid. In ten years New York bar conversations will begin not with the excessive rents (as today) or crime (as in the '70's and '80's) but complaints about the latest chain store incursion as the downside and cost of living in New York. But it will be a complaint in name only. Underneath it'll be just a pick up line. 

NO 7-Eleven city-wide petition on line!

NO 7-Eleven: resist chains and corporate control has a city-wide petition on line. Take a look at the great comments along with the signatures. 

To the New York City Planning Commission and City Council: Allow community self-determination to resist chain stores.

To: 

The New York City Planning Commission and City Council 

There are over 7,200 chain stores in New York City with more opening every year. 7-Eleven Corp alone is planning to open 100 new stores in Manhattan by 2015. Chain stores raise commercial rents, crowd out our commercial variety, our choices our mom-and-pops and our diversity. They efface our neighborhood character, erase our ethnic roots, erode our community relationships. They leverage wages down and, once cornering their market, leverage prices up. I call on the City Planning Commission and the City Council to amend the city's zoning text to require that no corporate formula store or bank open a new location without approval from the local community board. Such a zoning amendment will not only allow communities to restrict the number and location of chain stores, but also allow community boards to negotiate legally binding stipulations on all elements of chain store character from signage and closing hours to wage scale.

Allow community self-determination on chain stores, franchises and banks.

Sincerely,
[Your name]

http://www.change.org/petitions/to-the-new-york-city-planning-commission-and-city-council-allow-community-self-determination-to-resist-chain-stores?utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

Corporate control from afar

Back in the 18th century, Henry Rutgers, a New York City landowner, contracted to have a house built on one of his lots. He specified that there be no rear house; the lot not covered by the main house should remain a yard. Rear houses couldn't be rented to people of "quality." A rear house would attract riff-raff, and Rutgers thought it more important to keep up the neighborhood than extract a bit more profit from the lot. After all, it was his land, his neighborhood.

A century later, the first apartment buildings, called tenements, were constructed in New York, all in impoverished immigrant neighborhoods. The very first drawings of these show rear tenements. It's a clear indication that the landowner has lost any faith in the neighborhood as a place where he or his associates might consider living. The purpose of the land is no longer use, but exchange, constructed not to live in but to make money from. It's the concurrence of the commodification of space and control of land use from afar. The two are inseparable.

As demand increased at the bottom of the housing market, the quality of the living space declined, to the extent that mid century tenements were unlivable, unhealthy breeding grounds of plagues of cholera and epidemics of tuberculosis. Interior rooms had no windows and multiple families might occupy a mere 300 sq ft space in a mere three tiny rooms.

Eventually government stepped in, but only after the Draft Riots, a working-class, immigrant near revolution with the riots lasting four full days. But the exploitation of housing space continues as fewer and larger landlords buy up more lots in the city, applying their legal resources to evict and harass tenants throughout their properties. As these giant corporate landlords increase their holdings, there will be less accountability and more harassment.

Similarly with city commerce. New York has seen steady increases in chain store proliferation. They limit consumer choices, limit job and entrepreneurial opportunities; they increase commercial rents because they can pay higher rents than any local service or mom and pop. The consequence was particularly evident in Hurricane Sandy when all of downtown lost electricity. The small bodegas and independent pizza shops and small restaurants and bars were all open almost immediately, sometimes giving away perishables. All the chain stores were closed and remained closed until five days later electricity was restored.

Locality is not the solution to all the woes of the world, but corporate control from afar threatens us with increasing disempowerment, loss of choice and identity and undermines community self-determination. Regaining community self-determination is the underlying motive of our group "NO 7-Eleven: resist chains and corporate control."

7-Eleven and wages

It's important to consider what would replace a 7-Eleven on 11th and Avenue A. Since there are three liquor licenses within 500 feet of the site, it would be difficult for a bar owner to get passed the State Liquor License's constraints on license density. The next likely candidate would be a restaurant, judging by the local commerce in the EV. So how would a restaurant affect labor?

7-Eleven store associate hourly wage can be as low as $7.25/hr; $8.44 average (from Payscale and Glassdoor). 7-Eleven store associates are required to have English fluency: "Must be able to communicate clearly and effectively with customers and coworkers." They are also subjected to background checks -- no undocumented immigrants allowed.

Mean average for a cook's wage, nation-wide, $11.20/hr; median: $10.29/hr; lowest 10%: $8.14/hr (BLS). No language requirement, no background check. 

So replacing a 7-Eleven with a restaurant in NYC would improve the wage prospects generally, and specifically of immigrant workers, documented as well as undocumented. Unless it were a chain restaurant -- a McDonalds cook wage averages, according to Glassdoor, $7.41/hr. That's one reason among many, NO 7-Eleven is trying to curtail all giant chains and franchises. Minimum wage may be fine for a 16-year-old's first summer job, but not a way forward for labor in general. "The majority (66 percent) of low-wage workers are not employed by small businesses, but rather by large corporations." 

Is it easier to organize labor in a giant corporation? Maybe (but maybe not). Giant corps also have greater political clout the larger they are, so there is a danger of promoting corporatocracy. In one way it's the meeting of Stalinism and libertarianism -- "free" market corporatocracy replaces the totalitarian state, the "internal contradiction" of libertarianism, trading one form of control (government) for another (corporate giants). Reminds me of a Maoist friend who voted for Giuliani thinking that his reactionary policies would spark a revolution. Instead we have rampant gentrification.

Sunday in the Park with NO 7-ELEVEN

We're going to chalk up the park at the Tompkins Square Park nonbandshell at 2pm and then take our chalk and our Community Wheel of Fortune to the corner of Avenue A and 11th Street, the site of the threatened 7-Eleven, and chalk up the street and talk to the passers-by who don't yet know what's coming to their neighborhood. Join us for some good old anti-corporate-anti-suburbanization-and-anti-Pringle-ization-of-our-souls-and-our-streets fun! 

Here's a video journalism piece CUNY TV did on us (NO 7-Eleven starts @ 12:45) --

http://219tvmagazine.journalism.cuny.edu/2013/04/10/march2013/

(Wissecracks about my apartment will be punished.)