From Chicago News Scoop Dot Org

Local Politics in Action: Considering a Pawnshop
By JAMES WARREN
November 25, 2010
Alderman Joe Moore called a community meeting at the Rogers Park Library on Tuesday evening only to learn, along with about 60 attendees, that city budget cuts and shortened hours meant it was closed.
So, shortly after 7 p.m., the rag-tag assemblage shlepped several blocks north in the evening chill to a makeshift site, a fitting frustration given the untidy subject at hand: whether to approve a pawn shop license on the uninspired 7000 block of North Clark Street.

In the cramped 49th Ward Democratic headquarters, one learned again about the dreary but relevant issues that dominate a local politician’s life. Our elected officials can’t all be consumed by military strategy for Afghanistan, whether to raise the federal debt ceiling or even by Illinois’ continuing descent into financial ignominy.

In this case, Bruce A. Lowis, a fourth-generation pawnshop owner, wants Mr. Moore’s and the community’s backing for the license for his existing Rogers Park enterprise, Gold Star Jewelry & Coin, which mostly buys and sells jewelry and electronics. He needs the license in order to take goods on consignment and make loans.

“IN$TANT CASH FOR YOUR VALUABLES” is emblazoned above his storefront, which is tacky but not especially glaring on a forlorn stretch on which the facade of a nearby Subway sandwich shop, by comparison, resembles Tiffany’s.

When it comes to zoning in their wards, aldermen have the same power, if not more, as President Kim Jong-il over the North Korean nuclear program. This particular matter is slightly different since Mr. Lowis needs a so-called special-use permit, which means final say is with the Zoning Board of Appeals, though it will give much weight to the alderman’s preference.

“This is our bread and butter, grass-roots democracy at work,” the bright and diligent Mr. Moore told me earlier.

As for his influence, he cited decentralization as “one of the geniuses of Chicago’s style of government,” but a genius “which does get lots of justifiable criticism.”

Mr. Moore opened the reconfigured session by apologizing for the “curveball” thrown by the darkened library, with Mr. Lowis’s lawyer following with background of her client’s business and goal.

She assured all that an appraiser would testify to the zoning board that a pawnshop would not hurt surrounding property values. Her client is willing, too, to remove the coat of green paint from the brick building, which he owns, and to put up a new awning. There are three other pawnshops in the area.

It was then time for Mr. Lowis, who resembles and sounds like a trimmer, nattier Dennis Franz, with short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, pencil mustache, black slacks, charcoal-gray suit jacket, crisp white shirt and black-and-gray checked necktie.

He began with a flattering historical overview of his business, saying he proudly oversees a “poor man’s bank,” with 90 percent of the goods pawned ultimately redeemed and loans averaging about $90.

Conscious of the industry’s dubious image, he said his shops kept “pimps, prostitutes, pirates and thieves” at bay. If true, that’s probably more than the political class can claim.

Mr. Lowis made the case for a pawnshop’s being good for this distinctly diverse community and was assisted by his wife, Joyce, and by customers and friends, most poor and minority and from outside the ward.

“I bought coins from Bruce, and he gave me a good price,” a South Side man said.

A woman from Evanston added: “We’re poor people, and a lot of us can’t go into a bank. But we believe in gold and can always get money for it.”

A man who identified himself as a minister from Joliet offered, “My brother-in-law is a pawnbroker and doesn’t give me as good a price as Bruce.” He concluded: “I work with the Lord. We’re all sinners. The system [of pawnshops] is good for me and my parishioners.”

The criticisms of Mr. Lowis were few but passionate, including from Brian White, who is running against the alderman. One woman berated pawnbrokers as fencing stolen merchandise. “We don’t need this in Rogers Park,” she said.

The most pointed question was simple: What’s Mr. Moore’s view? He had not made a decision, he said, but a diplomatically phrased response leads me to wager he’ll turn thumbs down.

That would clearly chagrin Mr. Lowis. But, hey, as Scott Lee Cohen proved during this past election, an unknown Chicago pawnbroker can dream — at least of winning a Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.