There's Nothing Sweet about The Energy Crisis

pstrongSmall business owner at risk of losing business due to rising costsbr / /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/418/photo_1_feature.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Alison VanDeursen/p pWe're all trying to keep our PGE bills down. At my house we try to do our laundry on the rare sunny San Francisco days, so we can hang our clothes out on the line to dry. I am fortunate to have a washing machine and yard at my apartment, and the sheets smell so fresh and sweet when they come in from the garden. /p pBut there's nothing sweet about the energy crisis. It stinks of politics and big business, and of the sad decay of our community businesses. A couple of months ago I saw a sign taped in the window of the Laundromat, 2 doors down from my house, on the corner of Haight and Pierce in the lower Haight. It read, "Due to EXTREMELY HIGH PGE Bills and INCREASINGLY HIGH utility costs, we REGRET that we will have to raise the prices to COVER our operating costs." Top loaders went up 75 cents. I thought to myself, that's still got to take a lot of $2.00 loads of laundry to cover that bill!/p pNot long after that, my neighbor introduced me to Sharon, the owner of the Delaney Wash Dry. I asked Sharon how she was handling the crisis, and she shook her head. "That's my baby," she said of the Laundromat. 'My PGE bills have tripled. I'm working here today because I can't afford to pay anyone." Tearful, she feared she might have to sell the business and the building, which she owns as well./p pI have to mention that this is no ordinary Laundromat. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's a real community sort of place. I used to do a lot of laundry there, and everyone was friendly. It is always clean and in good order. Employees sweep the sidewalk, hang out and chat with passers by. It just has the feel of a solid neighborhood institution. And it appears to be one of the few remaining African-American owned businesses in the increasingly gentrified Lower Haight. /p pI spoke with an employee of the Laundromat named Maria. "Pushing sixty," she is a feisty grandmother and close friends with Sharon. They met 8 years ago, "hit it off right away," and have worked, laughed and cried together ever since. /p p"At first people would say to me, 'What? Why're you working for a black woman?'" Maria is from Texas, of Hispanic descent. "I say, what does that matter? She's a real good boss, a great bossÖ there ain't no one like her," Maria told me. "Anytime I had a serious problem, she was there for me."/p pI asked about the business in light of the energy crisis. "Sharon and I have cried together over this," Maria said. "Her dad worked so long to build this, he would turn over in his grave if he could see this." She told me that the bills had more than tripled- they had risen from $1000 a month to over $4000. Sharon, Maria said, is "playing it ear to ear- by the skin of her teeth." As the overhead has soared, business has slowed down- people are more conservative with their quarters in the face of their own bills and the laundry rate increase. These days Maria insists on helping out at the Laundromat, though Sharon often cannot pay her. /p pSharon fears foreclosure, of losing all she has worked her whole life for. Maria describes a generous woman dedicated to her family and friends, who would help anyone in any way she could, a woman who is smart but so trusting she has been taken advantage of by contractors who consider a woman an easy target. Now it seems she is being duped by the energy industry and its corrupt friends in government./p p"George Bush could have stopped it when he came here," Maria said. He could have frozen it. This is taking bread out the mouths of my grandchildren and I am pissed." Maria herself feels the crunch at home, where she lives with one of her daughters. In addition to managing an apartment building and her days at the laundry, Maria often earned some extra money washing and folding customers' clothing. But these days, she says, the entire laundry money goes straight into the machines, and then straight to PGE. "I understand," she said, "but that eight dollars here and there bought lot of fruit for my grandchildren." /p pA sign hangs above the dryers that reads, "In Case of Emergency Call 555-1212" Maria told me I could reach Sharon at that number, and I figure the PGE crisis is an emergency of sorts. I haven't reached her. Maybe I haven't been persistent enough. She's very busy. Her sister has been sick. Maybe she doesn't want to talk about it. Still, I am hoping to speak soon with Sharon, and to be able to share her story, in her own words. My own seem inadequate./p pI think I'll go back to doing my laundry at Delaney's. I'm not sure how much my $2.00 worth of whites and permanent press will serve to save my favorite neighborhood Laundromat. But it's getting cold in San Francisco, and itís still warm inside Delaney's, and Maria still has lots of stories to tell me about her grandchildren.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p