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Arsonists Against Topless Coffee
The
Grandview Coffee Shop seemed like a welcome addition to the local
economy of Vassalboro, Maine, when it opened in February. Owner
Donald Crabtree
interviewed 150 applicants for only ten server positions.
Yesterday, though, the shop was destroyed in a fire. The Boston Globe reports that the fire marshal's office is calling it arson. Who would be so heartless as to burn down an independent, small-town coffee shop? It might have something to do with owner Donald Crabtree's unique business model:
The shop brought a wave of publicity to the town of 4,400 people when Crabtree announced plans to have topless waitresses serve coffee and doughnuts between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Nothing in local ordinances barred such an establishment.
No one knows for sure, but the Globe article seems to imply that the arsonist disapproved of Grandview's loose employee attire policies. Before the uninsured building was destroyed, Crabtree—ever the innovative entrepreneur—was announcing plans to turn his shop into what sounds like a dry gentlemen's club:
Crabtree had proposed extending the shop hours until 1 a.m., adding music, and expanding parking. No alcohol would be served, Crabtree told the [Vassalboro] Planning Board.
The semi-nude baristas would also be allowed to dance.
Before anyone gets happy about averting moral armageddon in Vassalboro, Crabtree plans to reopen his shop. Next Monday, a Vassalboro Town Meeting—planned before the arson—will consider "regulating sexually oriented businesses," according to the Globe. Which raises the question: What's the sexual orientation of a business?
In the January 2003 print edition of Reason, Jackson Kuhl served up some useful coffee commentary. Also read Kerry Howley's 2005 article on why coffee is good for you—no matter what your waitress isn't wearing.
|6.4.09 @ 12:30PM|#
Before the uninsured building was
destroyed, Crabtree-ever the innovative entrepreneur
Innovative and stupid...
...but he must be doing very well to be able to rebuild despite
being uninsured.
|6.4.09 @ 12:31PM|#
Topless baristas? OK. But if they scald their nugs with steam from one of those espresso machines I could see the place getting "regulated" in a hurry.
Jennifer|6.4.09 @ 12:50PM|#
If topless servers offend you, burning the building down is OBVIOUSLY easier than just, say, not buying your coffee at that particular shop.
|6.4.09 @ 1:06PM|#
"Also read Kerry Howley's 2005 article on why coffee is good for
you"
I vote that Reason use topless writers (with photos of the writing
process).
Abdul|6.4.09 @ 1:33PM|#
At first, i thought this was a "toothless" coffeeshop, but that would describe every coffeeshop in Maine.
|6.4.09 @ 1:37PM|#
If topless servers offend you, burning the building down is
OBVIOUSLY easier than just, say, not buying your coffee at that
particular shop.
Come on now Jennifer...we all know that isn't the point.
The point is to prevent anyone from buying coffee there -- the
place is "immoral" for God sakes. Completely anathema to good
American values.
Ashley Kristen Dupré|6.4.09 @ 1:38PM|#
What's the sexual orientation of a business?
What would you like it to be?
|6.4.09 @ 1:40PM|#
The point is to prevent anyone from buying coffee
there
Really? You think the place was torched by a bunch of militant
anti-caffeine whackos?
-jcr
Xeones|6.4.09 @ 1:44PM|#
Really? You think the place was torched by a bunch of
militant anti-caffeine whackos?
Nah, just militant anti-letting-anyone-look-at-some-boobies
whackos. There's an awful huge Puritan streak in this country, in
every state, in both wings of the Major Political Party.
MNG|6.4.09 @ 1:56PM|#
"Before the uninsured building was destroyed, Crabtree-ever the
innovative entrepreneur
Innovative and stupid..."
I'm surprised you didn't say "tough titties"
|6.4.09 @ 1:56PM|#
It has to be said: this business surely brought a whole new
dimension to the question of "should I leave room for milk?"
Thank you, I'm here all week. Try the veal.
MNG|6.4.09 @ 2:03PM|#
"Does anyone know where Mitt Romney was on the night in
question?"
Where he is every night, in Kathyrn Jean-Lopez's dreams.
ev|6.4.09 @ 2:04PM|#
i've never been to hooters and i can't imagine going to a
topless coffee shop. i dont know. i love tits probably more than
the next guy...but i dont get it.
guys what's the deal? you get to eat/drink coffee while realizing
that it's the only way you can see said tits, awkwardly conversing
with tits in your immediate vicinity (totally shorting out my
brain)...awkwardly trying to tabulate a tip...probably based on
breast size....all while in furtherance of an awkward
erection.
i also don't understand lapdances. i either shoot my load in my
pants or i've just stuffed many dollars into a g-string to be
titillated just before the point of climax. i'm paying for blue
balls?
i've heard of people wearing a condom BEFORE going in and that
takes care of everything. if this is the etiquette, A) that is
fucked and B)no thank you
For Those About To Rock, We Po|6.4.09 @ 2:13PM|#
"guys what's the deal? you get to eat/drink coffee while
realizing that it's the only way you can see said tits, awkwardly
conversing with tits in your immediate vicinity (totally shorting
out my brain)..."
I spent my younger years playing in a road band that toured the
country. During the lean first couple of years, we played a lot of
clubs that used strippers as a warm-up act. At first, I was amazed
and slightly short circuited, but soon you get used to it and bare
titties become little more than a vase full of pretty flowers on
the table.
|6.4.09 @ 2:14PM|#
I try to avoid hating people in groups, but I fucking hate Puritans.
Puritans never burned down coffee shops. Well, maybe Cromwell did,
but I'm not aware of arson being used by Puritans west of the
Atlantic.
Dr No Pants|6.4.09 @ 2:28PM|#
My plan:
1) Rent out a conference room in a sleazy motel
2) post ads in the local paper looking for topless waitresses /
dancers
3) Conduct interviews and enjoy the free show
Is this legal?
Alan Colmes|6.4.09 @ 2:50PM|#
"Arrest Bill O'Reilly."
I just hope there is footage of the waitresses at work pre-fire. If
so, then surely O'Reilly will do the story.
Colin|6.4.09 @ 2:50PM|#
There used to be a topless donut shop in Ft. Lauderdale that was a required visit for every young male during Spring Break.
|6.4.09 @ 2:59PM|#
Before the uninsured building was destroyed, Crabtree-ever the innovative entrepreneur
Innovative and stupid...
...but he must be doing very well to be able to rebuild despite being uninsured.
Your second point refutes your first. If he is as well off as he
apparently is to rebuild without insurance, then it may well have
been a sound, rational decision to self-insure. I doubt he, or
anyone else, really thought the business faced a heightened risk of
burning due to militant mammarian protesters. Obviously in
hindsight he would have been better off with insurance but that's
not the correct standard for judging the reasonableness of his
decision.
|6.4.09 @ 3:11PM|#
There was also a topless donut shop called "Debbie Does Donuts" near Ft. Collins, CO. It was shut down due to back room gambling.
|6.4.09 @ 3:19PM|#
Bullshit. Property and Casualty Insurance is a rick based
business, so if he, or anyone else, would doubt the place would be
burned to the ground by militant mammarian protestors, the rates
would have been relatively small. So it would have been a sound
investment to insure, especially in the early stages of the
business where the property owner has probably not built up enough
surplus capital with which to rebuild.
It leads me to believe this guy may be wealthy independent of this
endeavor and he just wanted a place to see tits every day and offer
a service to others. If I were rich I could see opening a business
just because I wanted what that business offered, and if others
want it and it makes a little extra money, cool.
ktc2|6.4.09 @ 3:31PM|#
It's those "Christian" values like murder, arson, vandalism and
hate.
I used to have the Darwin fish on my car but I got tired or
replacing it every time it was stolen (at least weekly), so I put
on a bumper sticker of the same thing instead. That got the rear
bumper of my car spray painted black.
Reminds me of Hymn 43 (by Jethro Tull):
"If Jesus saves - well, He'd better save Himself
from the gory glory seekers who use His name in death."
Fluffy|6.4.09 @ 3:37PM|#
The other possibility is the reverse, Nick.
Maybe it's very expensive to insure "sexually oriented" businesses
that have received threats from angry Puritans.
I saw this story yesterday, but didn't understand something about
it until just now - it's a coffee shop because it's non-alcoholic.
Usually strip clubs are prevented from opening by the simple
expedient of finding some pretext to not give them a liquor license
[in one of the uncountable instances of the misuse of licensing
codes to accomplish ends unrelated to public health and safety].
This guy opened a coffee shop to evade the regulators. Now I
understand better why he was the target of arson - probably some
Puritan thought he was "cheating", by offering the shop in a way
that prevented the usual bullshit community nonsense from being
used to stop him, and felt "entitled" to use arson in response.
|6.4.09 @ 3:37PM|#
Bullshit. Property and Casualty Insurance is a rick based
business, so if he, or anyone else, would doubt the place would be
burned to the ground by militant mammarian protestors, the rates
would have been relatively small.
Notwithstanding the unnecessarily obnoxious expletive, that is
true.
So it would have been a sound investment to insure,
That is not, on its face, true. It may or may not be depending on
the individual's financial situation and his personal risk
tolerance. There is simply no way you can know whether insurance
(or any other investment for that matter) is or is not "sound" for
a specific individual without knowing more about that person.
Omegis13|6.4.09 @ 3:44PM|#
When do we get to start burning Puritans?
You know, if all of the non-puritans would hide/go somewhere else
for a few years, eventually the puritans would just start burning
themselves. History has shown this to be true.
|6.4.09 @ 3:50PM|#
Nah, just militant anti-letting-anyone-look-at-some-boobies
whackos.
Next, we have coming up: The Bonfire of the National
Geographics
|6.4.09 @ 3:54PM|#
Bullshit. Property and Casualty Insurance is a rick based
business, . . .
I think you're thinking of the Cafe Americain.
|6.4.09 @ 3:55PM|#
Fluffy may be right as to why rates are high, but if he can
afford to rebuild, he should be able to afford the insurance which
would almost undoubtedly be MUCH less than that cost.
Brian, I conceded he may not have needed the insurance due to
wealth from something else, but this place hasn't been open very
long. He either has other money, hence his ability to rebuild
without insurance, or he should have had insurance. We know enough
about the business (it's fairly new, and has some risk -- as a
patronized establishment) to know insurance was a sound investment
unless this is his hobby, which I suggested may be the case.
|6.4.09 @ 4:40PM|#
Fluffy may be right as to why rates are high, but if he can
afford to rebuild, he should be able to afford the insurance which
would almost undoubtedly be MUCH less than that cost.
You SO don't understand insurance. OK, here goes (from a former
insurance underwriter):
Insurance companies are in the business of making money off
insurance. On average, over long periods of time, the people who
invest in insurance get back less than the amount they pay in
premiums.
The whole point of insurance is that the marginal value of a dollar
varies with how much money you have. If you're a homeless person
who has just ten bucks to your name, an additional extra ten bucks
is worth a lot to you. If you earn a million bucks a year, an
additional ten bucks is chump change.
So, if you can afford to rebuild after a fire without straining
your financial resources, and you think the insurance company has
priced the risk accurately, you're better off financially
self-insuring.
But if losing the building in a fire will leave you in a world of
hurt, you should insure the risk despite knowing that on average
you will get a return of less than 100% of your premiums, because
the marginal value of your insurance premiums is less than the
marginal value of an insurance payout when you're desperately
cash-strapped after a fire.
And it's just clueless to say, "the insurance which would almost
undoubtedly be MUCH less than that cost", because the owner did not
know that there was a 100% probability that the fire was going to
occur. That's why they're called "risks", not "outcomes that have
already happened".
/insurance seminar
Paul|6.4.09 @ 4:49PM|#
If topless servers offend you, burning the building down is
OBVIOUSLY easier than just, say, not buying your coffee at that
particular shop.
I think the idea is that it sends a message.
The only question left is which christian did it? Or wait, what's
the muslim population like up in those parts?
|6.4.09 @ 7:12PM|#
"So, if you can afford to rebuild after a fire without straining
your financial resources, and you think the insurance company has
priced the risk accurately, you're better off financially
self-insuring."
Precisely. Insurance is for when you can't afford an unlikely, but
possible, catastrophe. This guy could, so there really wasn't a
point. Insurance companies benefit from having more available
capital than you do. Doesn't seem to a problem for this guy.
|6.4.09 @ 7:59PM|#
If you are going to be banning all sexually-oriented businesses,
then you will have to close just about any business that carries a
product advertised in national television. The vast majority of
major products use sex to advertise. Instead of having some
attractive person pitching his product on TV, this guy used topless
waitresses.
I read about this in another article before. Apparently, the
majority of people in that town could have cared less about the
coffee shop and the waitresses' state of dress (or rather undress).
At least this is how the author of the article was painting things.
However, a few people were very vocally against it. One of these
critics even went as far to say that 97% of the people in that town
condoned the arson. By this person's logic, that whole business,
with a staff of at least 10, was able to survive off of 20
customers (assuming there was no mass daily migration of people
just to buy coffee).
This is one of those times I wish the silent majority would not
remain silent. It is not the government's job to make sure we lead
a moral and religious life.
EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy|6.6.09 @ 3:30AM|#
Fluffy may be right as to why rates are high, but if he can afford to rebuild, he should be able to afford the insurance which would almost undoubtedly be MUCH less than that cost.
You SO don't understand insurance.
He's just using the same logic by which folks conclude that lottery
winners were "smart" to have bought the ticket: once you know the
outcome the correct course is obvious, so why couldn't that moron
see it before?
Back when I lived in Texas (more that a decade ago) I'd done a
crappy statistical analysis (using data out of the newspaper) of
the lottery and concluded that tickets were break-even investments
when the prize got to roughly 30 million. I think I'm down $3 out
of $5. Was I being smart or dumb? Why?
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