For more than 20 years before he became alderman of the 44th Ward, Tom Tunney worked full-time as a small businessman, running the Ann Sather’s restaurant near the Belmont el station. So you’d figure he’d be sensitive to the needs of other small businessmen in his ward. Yet merchants along Clark between Addison and Roscoe say he didn’t seem to have a clue that their businesses would be hurt when he banned parking at meters outside their stores before, during, and after Cubs games. “What were they thinking?” says Bob Roschke, who owns Bookworks, a used-book store at 3444 N. Clark. “I don’t know how we can stay in business if there’s no parking during games for the whole season.”
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To alleviate the congestion, a group of planners and bureaucrats from the transportation and streets and sanitation departments started meeting with Tunney last summer. By April they’d decided to ban parking at meters on Clark from two hours before games start until an hour after they end, making Clark four lanes wide from Addison to Roscoe. “It’s all about giving traffic more room so it moves faster,” Tunney explains. “We already ban parking at some of the meters north of Addison.”
Roschke says that banning parking at meters just north of Addison during games isn’t nearly as big a deal, because there are so few of them–less than a dozen. Moreover, most of the businesses near them are bars and restaurants that cater to the Cubs crowd and don’t depend on customers who drop in while games are going on. But south of Addison there are 30 or so meters and a wide variety of businesses–clothing store, bank, barbershop, beauty parlor, nail salon, auto-repair shop, sign company–that do depend on such customers. And these customers don’t have many alternatives, since you can’t park on most of the surrounding streets unless you’re a resident with a permit. “While the games are going on people are coming here to shop,” says Jay Schwartz, who owns Strange Cargo, a clothing store at 3448 N. Clark. “Our customers need parking.”
Other Clark Street merchants calculated how much business they were losing, circulated petitions, passed out flyers, and cursed the city. “In its infinite wisdom, the city’s fixed a problem that didn’t need fixing–because, let’s face it, how big a problem is this anyway, for an hour or so after a game lets out–by fucking over the small businesspeople,” says another merchant who wanted to remain anonymous. “The city doesn’t give a shit about small businesses.”
Publicly, both sides are calling it a win-win deal. Privately, the merchants are still rolling their eyes. “They’re only freeing up Clark for two blocks,” says one. “After Cornelia it just gets jammed again–so really, what have you saved? It’s a way for Tom and the city to save face. But please keep my name out–Tom’s really sensitive these days. God, I don’t need him going off on me.”
