LETTERS: Create a better climate for retail, not food trucks

To the Editor: Unfortunately, street vendors make the campus look trashy, and they appropriate public parking for their own private gain. The presence of vendors on campus is also unfair to merchants who face a much higher cost of doing business, and they suck away demand that could otherwise be filled by new, community enhancing businesses in storefronts. Street vendors have an unfair cost advantage over their brick-and-mortar competition. I assume they pay some nominal licensing fees to the city, but this is nothing compared to the retail rents in the area. While I understand the need for low-priced food alternatives on campus, what incentive does that type of business have to open up in our community when a food truck can park right in front, without paying rent? It's a simple case of supply and demand: if the unsightly food trucks are eliminated, there will be unmet demand that real merchants can move in to fill. The cost of feeding parking meters does not reflect the market value of the real estate, and vendors take up valuable parking. Many cities use meters as a means to keep traffic flow moving so more customers can visit merchants. Perhaps in our case, meters and two-hour parking, if enforced, could keep some convenient parking free for those times when we need to drop off a late assignment or we want have lunch with someone coming from off campus. These are not "enterprising business spaces" -- they are parking spaces. As an entrepreneur myself, I love it when someone like Campus Text takes on the big guy in town. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see they have a sweet (and unfair) deal for themselves, parked in a Ryder truck and paying almost nothing for prime real estate. Yes, their prices are lower than The Book Store, but they can never supply all the titles The Book Store does out of the back of a van. Are we really saving? Since The Book Store's fixed overhead costs do not change as the volume of books sold goes down, this very well could translate into higher prices on all the books you are required to buy that Campus Text does not offer. I would love to see Campus Text stay on campus, but I would prefer they move off of one of our major streets and onto private property where I don't have to see the bright yellow trucks and throngs of people. Whether we are talking about food or books, Penn has a long way to go to satisfy the demands of students. Controlling street vendors is a step in the right direction, however. If vendors want to do business in our community, they should rent a storefront like other businesses do instead of appropriating our public space for their private gain. If we want better stores and services in our area, we should support vendor control policies that create a favorable climate for new businesses to open. Penn is being extremely generous in its plans for vendor plazas with $1-per-year rents. Darin Weeks Wharton '98 Unconstitutional speech codes To the Editor: It amazes me that four years after one of the most controversial issues on Penn campus in recent history, the former president of this esteemed institution still fails to recognize the central focus of the "water buffalo" debacle. The controversy was never about racism! It focused on the absurdity and questionable constitutionality of collegiate speech codes. Wake up Sheldon Hackney! This case catapulted a complete revision of those very codes during his presidency. Hackney's quote ("'Water buffalo' ending leaves speech questions unanswered," DP, 9/10/97) on the possibility of another "water buffalo" -- like incident followed: "Racism is alive and well and has become more acrimonious as affirmative action has become attacked in other parts of the country." While this statement may be 100 percent accurate, it reveals a lack of understanding on Hackney's part given the context in which he was speaking. Yes, there is the unfortunate likelihood of racism on college campuses -- but the likelihood of another "water buffalo" incident is dependent not on racism, but rather on restrictive speech codes and their inevitable misinterpretation by their watchdogs. Hackney has once again distorted the issue surrounding 1997 College graduate Eden Jacobowitz. It is not a racial issue -- I would think that four years is enough time to review the issue and make that very crucial distinction. Why is it that when so many others have, he has failed to do so? Lawrence Borger Law '00 Cancelled Political Science recitations To the Editor: I am a Political Science major in my last semester at Penn and am enrolled in three Political Science classes -- two of which were to have recitations, both of which have been cancelled. The professors, excellent lecturers whom we are privileged to have, started by explaining how important and necessary the recitation is, a sentiment with which I fully concur. Yet subsequently they informed us we would not be having recitations after all. For one of the classes, the Political Science Department just couldn't come up with a teaching assistant. The other class in question, "The American Presidency," taught by new Professor Marie Gottshalk, a captivating and fine lecturer from Yale, has a TA. Yet for reason I still fail to understand, we have no recitations for this large-enrollment class. My disappointment comes in contrast to the superb recitations I had last year, led by Graham Dodds and Yoshinobu "Yoshi" Tomiyama. As a graduating senior and former student at the huge University of Michigan, I have enough experience with recitations to know the good from the bad. To the new students at Penn who are interested in Political Science, I hope you don't find cancelled recitations the norm of the future. Alan Albert College '98