Editorial: Violence curbs business success

If you care about money, you need to care about curbing violence.

Fudge Farm is closing its East Carson Street location on Pittsburgh’s South Side.

A small business closing is not surprising in a high-inflation economic climate. That’s especially true for food service businesses that have been fighting for workers since the covid-19 pandemic began as well as for fancier, more luxury-focused purveyors like a gourmet candy shop.

But that’s not why Fudge Farm owners say they are closing the doors. They are still going to sell chocolaty treats at the Waterfront shop and via the Farm’s food truck.

The reason, they say, for shuttering the South Side shop is the neighborhood’s recent rash of violence.

“Due to the uncontrollable shootings and violence as well as other circumstances on E. Carson St. today will be Fudge Farm’s last day there. We can no longer ask teenage children, or (anyone) for that matter to work for us in this environment. We would like to thank our customers for years of support,” the business’ Twitter account tweeted late Sunday.

The social media message was shared less than 24 hours after two men were shot outside the store at 2:30 a.m. Sunday.

It is an understandable position. The store hasn’t lost customers or employees to gunshots, but the owners apparently feel they would be putting people at risk by staying open.

This isn’t Pittsburgh’s fault. On the same day, Philadelphia also was marked by violence, with three dead and 11 wounded in a mass shooting at the Theatre of Living Arts, a popular concert venue.

It is, however, an ongoing problem that doesn’t get solved by everyone agreeing it happens everywhere.

Maybe having it hit jobs and businesses is what will drive that point home. Fudge Farm is not the first business to leave a neighborhood because of violence. Take a look at the empty storefronts in areas with high crime rates — the gaps left by the companies driven out and the new ones that wouldn’t come in.

The South Side shouldn’t become a place where gourmet chocolate is replaced with gunfire. Where a trendy business flees out of fear for the lives of the kids who work the counter. Where the city loses the tax money that helps with the programs that keep streets safer.

No neighborhood should be. But without committed, top-down and bottom-up action to roll back violence, that is what happens.

Because this kind of violence could happen — and has happened — anywhere, it is up to all communities to work toward solutions before their local burger joint or corner bar decides it isn’t worth the risk.

Violence is everyone’s problem, and that makes it everyone’s business to stop it.