Not on my block: An inconvenient food war

Pastor Rosa Morris gets ready to open the doors to the Apostolic Ark Pentecostal Church food pantry Saturday morning, April 16, 2011. The pantry is being sued by a nearby grocer who says he can't compete with free food. less Pastor Rosa Morris gets ready to open the doors to the Apostolic Ark Pentecostal Church food pantry Saturday morning, April 16, 2011. The pantry is being sued by a nearby grocer who says he can't compete with ... more Photo: Autumn Driscoll Photo: Autumn Driscoll Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Not on my block: An inconvenient food war 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

Outside the Apostolic Ark Pentecostal Church's food pantry, folks are lined up with their empty canvas totes to pick up enough meat, fresh string beans and canned staples to get them through the next few days.

From the back to the front of the line, just inside the doorway, where these groceries are doled out, this huddled mass waits about half an hour, shuffling in the cold. Nobody in the crowd makes eye contact. It's as though the gray pavement and their feet are the most fascinating thing.

And it doesn't matter how polite Pastor Rosie Morris and her flock of helpers are. Standing on line, hopping from one foot to the other to stay warm is a mixed bag. Food pantry customers feel demoralized and grateful for this handout.

"I've got some fresh fruit, veggies, chicken and potatoes," a guy named Howard, who used to be a cook for a business, says. "Peanut butter, juice and some canned goods too. It won't get my family through the week, but enough of the way so that we can get by for now."

Howard trudges home with his two big sacks of groceries on foot. He lives about six blocks away. The first business he passes after leaving the food pantry on Stratford Avenue in Bridgeport's East End, which is right next door in the same building, is Convenience Brand Grocery Store.

No one is inside this small bodega, save for its owner, Emmanuel Dieujuste. Not a single customer. Dieujuste blames it on the church's food pantry, a newcomer on the block.

Apostolic's food pantry, according to the sign it has posted outside, is only one one day a week -- Saturday -- and only for about four hours, to boot.

"Free food is a wonderful idea. There are lots of people around who need it. And I'd have no problem with it if it were any place but next door to me," Dieujuste fumes.

"But this pantry is taking away my customers -- people who were coming to me until that opened. What's more, when I signed my lease, my landlord promised me that no other competiting food place would ever open. And now this. He's breached our contract. That's why I'm suing him and the church's food pantry."

Just as food pantries are important and serve a pressing need, so are small businesses. If a landlord pledges not to lease space in the same building to a competing food establishment, and an entreupreneur like Dieujuste relies on that promise to enter into his agreement, and if he can show his bodega has been harmed as a result, perhaps he can get some money out of his landlord or cancel his lease.

Dieujuste concedes that his chances of prevailing in his lawsuit depend on the specifics of his contract with his landlord. "I can't locate it for you right now, but I know what we agreed to, and there is wording in there that is supposed to protect me from other food places in this landlord's building."

It's not money that Dieujustice is after or even to be released from his lease, he says, "it's just that I want them to stop handing out food right next door to me. It's crushing my business. They're giving away everything I am selling with the exception of tobacco products and beer."

Truth be told, the Convenience Brand Grocery is a clean, airy place. But it doesn't have a lot of inventory. And its prices are somewhat higher than supermarket prices on items like canned ravioli and pasta. Diagonally across the street on Stratford Avenue, however, at the Santa Martha Grocery store, half a dozen customers are shopping. And the shelves are packed with merchandise.

Angel and Leticia Malines have owned the Santa Martha Grocery for 37 years. Martha, by the way, is the patron saint of waiters, housekeepers and servants and is associated with showing hospitality.

"Sometimes, I see people come in here who I can tell are hurting financially, and I tell them, `see that food pantry over there? If you need help, they're giving free food over there.' "

Even with the Malineses working seven days a week, like Dieujustice, business is down. "Things are bad," Malines says, "business has dropped 30 percent a week over what it was last year, and that was down, too."

The Malineses don't buy Dieujuste's argument that the food pantry is responsible for his lack of customers.

"He didn't have a lot of traffic from the beginning," Malines says, handing an empty-handed customer a grocery bag to take to the food pantry, who claims Dieujustice turned him down when he asked for a grocery bag without buying anything. "There's stuff you do as a merchant because you have to. But there are a bunch of things you do that you don't have to because it's the right thing to do for your customers, whether they buy from you or not. People appreciate that kind of thing. You treat somebody bad once, they remember that for a long time."

Connecticut Post columnist MariAn Gail Brown can be reached at 203-330-6288 or mgbrown@ctpost.com.