A Times Editorial

Pizza delivery as a moral obligation

Should a pizza company have to deliver pizzas in a neighborhood where its drivers don't feel safe?

Is it racial discrimination if a pizza company refuses to deliver to neighborhoods it contends are unsafe, but all those neighborhoods are populated by minorities?

What right do the residents of a minority neighborhood have to demand equal services from a private company?

Those are important questions being debated in Tarpon Springs, where refusal by Pizza Hut and Domino's to deliver pizzas to parts of an African-American community at night have spawned allegations of racism.

Residents of Tarpon Springs' Union Academy neighborhood are fed up with having to go get their pizzas or have them delivered to friends' homes outside the restricted delivery area. Some of those residents came to a City Commission meeting earlier this month and asked commissioners to help get delivery service reinstated or suspend the companies' occupational licenses for discrimination.

This is not the first time that pizza deliveries have been an issue in Tarpon Springs. For years, Domino's has refused to deliver pizzas at night to Mango Circle, a small, predominantly black, low-income housing area that has only one way in and out. About six years ago the city was able to persuade Pizza Hut, which did not deliver to certain African-American areas in Tarpon Springs, to reinstate deliveries. But late last year a driver was robbed of $100 by three teens and hit in the head. Pizza Hut, in a ridiculous overreaction to that one incident, has since refused to deliver at night to a large area bounded by Harrison Street on the south, Lemon Street on the north, Pinellas Avenue (Alt. U.S. 19) on the west and S Disston Avenue on the east. That includes most of the Union Academy neighborhood.

Former city commissioner Glenn Davis, one of those who spoke at the recent commission meeting, called the delivery policies "racism, plain and simple." And indeed, there are good reasons for Union Academy residents to suspect that motive.

For example, while the pizza companies cite driver safety as their primary concern, they have not presented crime statistics to prove that drivers are more at risk on Mango Circle or in Union Academy than anywhere else. Crimes occur in other parts of Tarpon Springs, too. Are those areas (likely to be predominantly white) denied pizza delivery? No. Also, Domino's mentions the darkness in the Mango Circle neighborhood as the primary factor in its decision not to deliver there. Come on. Does the company therefore deny nighttime deliveries to the many other areas of Tarpon Springs that lack street lights? No, it doesn't.

But there is another side to this coin.

Pizza delivery drivers have become favorite targets of criminals all over the nation, and have not only been robbed of the paltry sums they carry, but beaten, shot and killed. Not surprisingly, drivers are easily spooked and are reluctant to drive into areas where they feel uncomfortable. Twice in the past, pizza delivery drivers have been beaten and robbed in these areas of Tarpon Springs; other drivers say they have been harassed by residents.

The Union Academy neighborhood is populated primarily by law-abiding citizens and has made enormous progress at pulling itself up by its own bootstraps in the last decade. But it remains a place where crime is an undeniable problem. Tarpon Springs Police Department statistics show that 45 of the 174 robberies that occurred citywide in the last seven and a half years were in Union Academy. It is a place where drug dealers feel free to approach vehicles passing through, even in the daytime. But why should every resident of Union Academy be punished for the crimes of a few?

By late last week, the debate about pizza deliveries in Tarpon Springs had heated up. Tarpon Springs City Commissioner David Archie, who directs a nonprofit agency in Union Academy, and several of his neighbors filed a complaint with the Pinellas County Office of Human Rights alleging discrimination by the companies. And City Attorney John Hubbard issued a memo concluding that the companies are guilty of red-lining certain areas of the city, which may violate civil rights laws, and that the city could revoke or suspend their occupational licenses.

This issue is not exclusive to Tarpon Springs, but arises regularly in cities all over the country. Federal civil rights law states that a place of public accommodation, which includes a restaurant, must provide "full and equal enjoyment" of its goods and services to all people. Courts have found pizza companies in violation of the law if they could not provide a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for denying delivery service to an area.

So far, Pizza Hut and Domino's have provided only flimsy excuses in Tarpon Springs.

Leaders in Union Academy ought to get together and discuss what they can do to offer reassurance to the pizza companies, because residents there continue to suffer the consequences of the neighborhood's reputation, deserved or not, as crime-ridden.

But Union Academy residents do not have to endure discriminatory treatment and were right to raise this issue. They want only to be treated equally -- to have pizza delivered to their doors as it is to homes all over Pinellas every night. Pizza Hut and Domino's and any other delivery company that slights Union Academy residents because of unfounded fears or the color of their skin have a moral and legal obligation to correct that inequity.

What do you think?

The Times would like to know what you think about pizza companies refusing to deliver to some neighborhoods.

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