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Pizza delivery is back in Ridgecrest
By MONIQUE FIELDS
© St. Petersburg Times,
But it wasn't always this way. The simple pleasure of ordering pizza only frustrated residents of the Ridgecrest neighborhood near Largo as recently as February 2000. That's when Dixon's daughter, then 10, tried to place an order with Pizza Hut and was told the company didn't deliver to the neighborhood. Some pizza businesses don't deliver to areas where they fear drivers will be robbed or injured. The practice, called "redlining," has long been debated across the country for years. It has risen to the forefront often because redlined neighborhoods are predominantly black and some residents point to the practice as a form of racial discrimination. That's what it felt like to Dixon. Frustrated by what he heard his daughter tell him that February, he went to the nearby Pizza Hut with a video camera and asked employees to explain to him why they wouldn't deliver in his neighborhood. They called the police, but he wasn't arrested. Later he told his story to the St. Petersburg Times, which wrote about the lack of deliveries. Others agreed with him. "When they wouldn't deliver out here, it really hurt me because it was another knockdown," said Cheryl Thomas, a neighbor. But those in the pizza business say race is not the issue. They are liable for their employees' safety and rely on local crime statistics and reports from drivers to determine which areas to serve. As soon as crime rates started dropping, Domino's Pizza and Pizza Hut slowly started making deliveries in Ridgecrest. "It's been good," Dixon said. "They come day or night. They try to treat us equally now." Problems with pizza delivery in Ridgecrest started years ago when 34-year-old Dixon was a teenager. Someone would order pizza, have it delivered to a vacant home and then rob the driver, he said. Phil Rands, an owner of 10 Domino's stores in Pinellas County, said his drivers were approached by drug dealers, and some people threw fruit at them. Since then, the neighborhood has changed. Dixon lives in a 3-year-old home, one of many built in the neighborhood in the past few years. An expansion of the Omni Center and the extension of 119th Street N are providing a facelift to the community. Since 1995, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office has increased its presence in the neighborhood. A community police officer substation is in the Rainbow Village public housing complex. A second office is on 119th Street N. And from 1996-2000, the number of reported incidents in the area has decreased 27 percent, said Sgt. Greg Tita of the Sheriff's Office. All those changes made a difference to Rands. He constantly monitored Ridgecrest. He reviewed crime information provided by the deputies, and he conducted his own subjective surveys of the area by periodically driving through it to see how residents reacted to a car topped with a Domino's sign. He didn't see any of the activity his drivers had reported to him earlier. "To the credit of the community, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore," Rands said. Domino's started delivering in the neighborhood last August. First, drivers delivered pizzas on a temporary basis until 10 p.m. In November, Domino's permanently expanded its service, he said. "I'm a locally owned and operated franchisee," Rands said. "I want to deliver everywhere." Pizza Hut started delivering pizzas in Ridgecrest about a year ago, said Julie Hildebrand, a spokeswoman for the Dallas-based company. But it is unclear why. The store manager who made the decision no longer is employed by the company, and the service area was in place when the current manager arrived in November, Hildebrand said. "We want to sell as many pizzas as possible," she said. 'It makes no sense to us to prohibit sales of pizza. That's what we're in business to do." To many, that's a welcome attitude. Thomas learned about pizza delivery in her neighborhood by accident. She had planned to pick up the pizza from a nearby Pizza Hut when the employee told her it could be delivered. She was so stunned she stated her address again just to make sure it was okay. The employee assured her the company would deliver. "Well, thank you," came the response. Neighbors slowly noticed they could order pizza and have it delivered during the daytime. Then at least one company decided to deliver at night. After his daughter's experience with Pizza Hut, Dixon refused to order from chain again. But he gladly orders pizza from Domino's about three times a month. "I just want the pizza to keep coming," he said.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
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