Hope on Main Street

Today I popped in on my old pal, Mark Policki, who owns Bristol Cleaners and Custom

Tailors on Main Street, a few doors down from our new office at the Press.

Regular readers may remember Policki's plight - that he was having such a tough go of it in the lousy economy that he gave up the apartment he'd had for many years and moved in with family to keep expenses down and hang on to the shop.

Mark's usually smiling, so I wasn't surprised to see him grinning today, but he told me business was up a little bit. He said he had hope.

I was mighty happy to hear that. He's still there, has some new customers and figures things will improve a lot when the former mall site across the street is developed. He's guessing that will be about five years from now.

So if you have dry cleaning, bring it over to Mark. He'll learn your name and you'll feel welcome there. And we'll keep one more Main Street business from falling victim to the woes of downtown and the recession.

Those doors between my office and Mark's shop? Vacant.

Politicians, coffee and dry cleaners

I spent the day with politicians. First, Tom Foley's little coffee chat with the chamber early this morning at the Tunxis Bristol Campus. It wasn't especially well-attended; 20 people in the room if you count Foley, 17 men and three women, for anyone who is interested in that sort of thing. Almost half, including all the women, are employed by either the chamber, the Press, Tunxis or Foley. (He had an aide there, a young man who was easily the only person in the room under age 40.)

I'm not sure why the turnout was so poor, but Foley didn't seem to mind.

Next I went to a little press conference staged by Tom Colapietro, Bristol's senator, and Donald Williams, the state senate president. It was at Bristol Custom Cleaners and Tailors on Main Street and focused on how the Senate Dems want to improve the economy through their jobs package.

The cleaners only has one job -- the one held by the owner, Mark Policki, and he's hanging on by a thread, if you'll pardon the pun.

He's a really nice guy with a sad story to tell. He gave up his home of 17 years, an apartment he loved, to save the business by saving expenses. That's commitment. Business has to increase by at least 30 percent for him to break even. He's trying to hold out for development across the street at the city-owned, former mall site.

Mark is not only a friendly, swell guy, but he has great music (usually jazz) playing in his shop every time I stop in to say hello. He works on his store window to make it attractive (sometimes he sits there reading and watching the city go by, he told me) and burns candles to make the place smell nice. I'm not kidding when I say the guy is trying.

Today he had on a nifty hat (to keep warm, since he keeps the shop pretty cool) and what's more, it was his 51st birthday. The picture above doesn't do Mark justice. And it doesn't show his cool hat. I think a better one will be in The Bristol Press. Thanks to Gregg Davis at the Capitol for the photo!

Tom gave Mark a big fancy birthday card signed by some of the folks at the Capitol, but it didn't have a tax break inside or anything like that, though Mark seemed tickled by it all the same.
To me, it seemed a card was the least they could do for Mark while they used his nice little shop as a backdrop for their press conference about the folks on "Main Street."

So happy birthday, Mark! I hope you get a present of some new customers in the coming weeks.

If you have some dry cleaning, laundry or tailoring to do, think about sending it to Mark, who is trying to keep his business alive on Main Street.

I'd sure rather have Mark a few doors down from the Press than a boarded up storefront, but that's an understatement if I ever made one. He's a great neighbor, so I hope we can keep him in business in this community. I know I'll be looking to see if I've got any other cleaning I can bring him and I hope other people will, too.

I wrote stories about all of this for The Bristol Press, but I'm not supposed to post them here anymore. Hopefully you can see them at www.bristolpress.com.

Tomorrow, I get started early again with Ned Lamont at the chamber.