[Ohio-talk] Cleveland Sight Center to close nine remaining food stands run by people who are blind or visually impaired | cleveland.com

[Sammons, Elizabeth]

Link to today's article and text below.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/05/cleveland_sight_center_to_clos.html

Plain Dealer Metro > Business
Cleveland Sight Center to close nine remaining food stands run by people who are blind or visually impaired
Published: Thursday, May 24, 2012, 5:45 AM     Updated: Thursday, May 24, 2012, 6:55 AM
 By Pat Galbincea, The Plain Dealer The Plain Dealer
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PD fileCleveland Sight Center Executive Director Steve Friedman
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Mounting financial losses are forcing the Cleveland Sight Center to close nine food stands, ending a program that for 90 years has employed people who are visually impaired or blind in Cuyahoga County.


Steve Friedman, executive director for the Cleveland Sight Center, said the stands are closing because they are no longer profitable. They are projected to lose $120,000 this budget year.

Some of the stands will close as early as June 15. All will be closed by Aug. 31.

"Food stands as an employment vehicle are no longer viable," Friedman said. "But our commitment to the employment of the visually impaired and the blind remains as strong as ever."

The Cleveland Sight Center, known as the Cleveland Society for the Blind until a name change in 2004, has underwritten the costs and subsidized the operation of the nine stands to employ the blind, said center spokesman Kent Smith.

The company budgeted for an operating loss of $30,000 for the 2012 budget year, which ends Sept. 30. But the stands now have a projected a loss of $120,000.

The nine stands closing are:

* Kaiser Hospital on Snow Road in Parma.

* AT&T operated building on Snowville Road in Brecksville.

* Cleveland Board of Education building on East Sixth Street.

* The Justice Center, fourth floor, on Ontario Street.

* AT&T Erieview building on East Ninth Street and Lakeside Avenue.

* Jane Edna Hunter building on East 40th Street and Euclid Avenue.

* The Euclid City Jail on East 222nd Street.

* The Virgil Brown building at 1641 Payne Ave.

* The House of Correction on Northfield Road in Cleveland.

The Cleveland Society for the Blind started operating stands in 1922. Smith said those operations led to the 1936 passage of the Randolph Sheppard Act that allowed food and snack stands to be operated in federal buildings by those visually impaired or blind.

In 2000, the Cleveland Sight Center operated 18 food stands in Cuyahoga County. Nine closed by 2008.

Smith said that in the 2008-09 budget year, the remaining nine food stands collected $300,000 in gross sales. Food sales this budget year will be no greater than $120,000.

"This is not a sudden shift in retail economics," he said. "The Jane Edna Hunter building once had 1,000 employees. They are now down to 500. We once served 50 to 70 inmates and employees in Euclid Jail; now it's down to 20 to 40.

Low-cost restaurants and food trucks close to the buildings where the Sight Center runs snack shops also played a part in the economic spiral downwards, he said.

"It's a 90-year success story that has come to an end," he said.

Some of the stands might continue in some of the buildings -- bids are being taken at the Justice Center and Euclid Jail -- but they will no longer be run by the Cleveland Sight Center, Smith also said.

About 10 employees will be affected by the closing of the stands, but Smith said the center is committed to helping them find new employment.
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