This is a post about something happening in Philadelphia...but it could happen anywhere, even along the Main Line. Why? Because in the zeal to reinvent everything many small businesses and people are getting forced out. And sometimes the forcing isn't overt, it's subtle...very subtle....editorials appear in local papers that imply if you aren't a millionaire or aren't a high end over priced business, you might be more comfortable elsewhere. Then you read articles about proposed developments that say they are all about affordable housing yet you wonder affordable for whom?

Of course, things like this make you wonder why we all bother. Then you can open the paper and read things that are more positive, even if you think comparing Ardmore to Bethlehem is apples to oranges, and please, we don't want slots around here....Bethlehem is getting them and they aren't the answer (hear that Valley Forge?)

We can save big estates like Glenmede, yet other areas along the Main Line go wanting, and gas stations owned by Lehigh Oil want to ruin yet another neighborhood...it is mind numbing....then comes this tale out of Philadelphia. About a small business and a small businessman with history in Philadelphia...and what, he advocates for small businesses and he's out? Or is it he's not fancy enough? Doesn't fit a preconceived notion of fanciness in a market, Reading Terminal Market? Can nothing be a little humble, a little ordinary? Does it all have to be about glitz and pomp and circumstance? And why is it if you are a little huy and you say you don't like something, someone tries to get rid of you? From small business merchants to kindergarten teachers to ordinary Joe on the street? Do mean people rule everything?

There is something really foul about today's society....after all we live in a country where the war in Iraq, homelessness, etc takes a back seat to a spoiled brat named Paris Hilton and another spoiled brat named Lindsey Lohan....America, you've lost your way....

Market forcing out one of its veterans
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer

Rick Olivieri should have been smiling.
After all, the National Education Association's 9,000 delegates were in town, and the lines at Rick's Philly Steaks were longer than usual as folks wandered by his big, enticing window on the 12th Street side of the Reading Terminal Market.

Instead, Olivieri was on the phone to lawyers, business associates and friends, trying to figure out if his family's 25-year reign in that corner of the venerable market will come to an end on July 31.

That's the deadline managers of the 104-year-old market gave Olivieri on June 28. Sometime this fall, market managers will bring in a "fresh face," Tony Luke's Old Philly Style Sandwiches - he of the stellar Zagat's rating as well as appearances in the ring, recordings and film.

But is it a fresh face or more a case of getting rid of a troublesome old face?

Kevin Feeley, a spokesman for general manager Paul Steinke, insisted that Olivieri's departure had nothing to do with his often thorny dealings with management as head of the Reading Terminal merchants group.

Feeley said Tony Luke was too high-profile to pass up: "Nationally, this is a premier sandwich shop. We think the chance to bring Tony Luke to the market is significant and only makes the market better."

Olivieri, 42, is unconvinced: "He may be Zagat's, but is he part of the third generation of the family that invented the steak sandwich? Has he been invited to France three years in a row?"

Olivieri is the grandson of Pasquale "Pat" Olivieri, who with younger brother Harry founded Pat's King of Steaks in South Philadelphia....No, Olivieri said, this is not about wanting Tony Luke's. It's "retaliation" for his role as president of the Reading Terminal Merchants Association during several years of protracted, painful bargaining on new leases for about 50 of the 76 tenants.

"I spend all this time negotiating leases for the tenants, and I'm not going to take care of my own?" Olivieri asked.

Feeley acknowledged Olivieri's work as the merchants' advocate but insisted bad blood had nothing to do with the decision to evict him....Olivieri, meanwhile, has not given up. Petitions in his support are circulating in the market, and his lawyer, William A. Harvey, said other things are planned.

"They bit off more than they can chew," said Harvey. "Rick isn't going to silently walk into the night. He's going to be there on Aug. 1."