Raise your hands if you saw this coming....

Re: Common Table.

KTVZ has an article about some of the neighbors of Common Table being unhappy.

Leaving aside the merits of the idea. (Like I'm going to come out against feeding the poor....) This seemed predictable from the very start. I know when I first heard the idea, I sort of wondered -- hmmmm, how is that going to work?

It doesn't seem like all that long ago that the city was exploring ideas of ways to discourage loitering downtown.

Instead, we decided to offer free meals.

Again, without being against the idea of feeding the down and out, I have some questions.

Is there an actual need for a gourmet soup kitchen? A four star fine dining experience for the hungry?

What exactly is being accomplished?

Not that there is anything wrong with it.

I think the title of the restaurant tells us that it's meant as a meeting place for the average citizen, the well-heeled citizen, and the temporarily disconvenienced, and the permanently down and out? Fair enough.

Not that there is anything wrong with it....

The other possibility is that it's meant to be a way to earn enough money to pay for the free meals. Though I have to wonder if -- by the time you subtract the cost of goods and the overhead -- they wouldn't do just as well with donations.

Finally, (again I am not against the idea of feeding people who are down on their luck), I do question the mingling of for-profit and for-charity in the same businesses.

As people who read this blog know, I don't like the idea of for-profit businesses being subsidized. Or of charity businesses attempting to earn profits. (By this, I mean employees being paid beyond what they would be paid in real life -- Blue Cross executives being paid millions, for instance.)

Overall, it just seems like a strange concept. A way to do-good in a congenial setting?

Not that there is anything wrong with it

I've talked to two business owners who are REALLY unhappy with what's been happening in and around the building and who are planning to leave -- the story mentions a third business who has already left.

Anyway, it's possible the landlords will find enough businesses to fill the spaces around Common Table, and no harm will be done. Or it's possible that the place will empty out.

In that sense, the marketplace will decide.

I'll just leave with the comment: there is a time and place for everything.


Based on the comments over on KTVZ -- let the tar and feathering commence.