10.7.19 Bee-otch of the Day: Great Lakes Energy

BECOME AN AFFILIATE OF T-SHIRT HELL AND MAKE SOME MONEY!

Bee-otch of the Day honors are awarded Monday through Thursday; Bee-otch of the Week is awarded Sunday morning on Chuck69.com.
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Name: Great Lakes Energy
Age: 20
Occupation: electric company
Last Seen: Boyne City, MI
Bee-otched For: wanting to make too much dough
 

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Not all restaurateurs can be as successful as Gordon Ramsay.

Same goes with Ray Kroc, Mike Ilitch, Dave Thomas or even Col. Sanders.

Most restaurant owners are hard-working people like you and me, working hard to make sure that the meal you paid big bucks for tastes good.

Since 2015, Jamie Zichterman has owned The Mitten Pizza near Gun Lake, about half-way between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. For much of the life of his business, he's paid a reasonable $500 per month in electric bills.

But then, reality hit because of an error by his electric company.

Turns out that his meter readers from Great Lakes Energy didn't realize that his business had two electric meters. As a result, last week, GLE slammed Zichterman with a $20,000 bill.

He announced last week on Facebook that if he cannot come up with the $20K by the end of the month, he'll be forced to close. Thankfully, the community is showing their support for the Zichterman family. One person even started a GoFundMe page that has raised nearly $4,000 to keep The Mitten open.

To somebody who owns a small business, $20,000 is indeed a lot of money. My mother had a small business herself several years ago and she had many unexpected bills, like repairs and landlord surprises. Needless to say, she and her now-ex-husband closed up shop because it was losing money.

Here in my section of Grand Rapids, I'm within a stone's throw of the usual suspects: Pizza Hut, Jet's, Little Caesar's, Sbarro, Old Chicago and even (barf) Domino's. I even live near trendier pizza joints like Buddy's and coming soon, MOD Pizza, which has been called the Chipotle of the pizza business. At MOD (an acronym for "Made On Demand"), all pizzas are the same price regardless of toppings and they're thrown into an 800-degree oven for three minutes. Not to mention, MOD has been praised for paying their employees a living wage, which is quite the opposite for most fast food chains.

However, my area does have local chains for pizza. Uccello's, Palermo's, Faro's, Village Inn and Florentine's all come to mind. Yes, I see ads for all the national chains all the time, but keep trying to tell myself that the smaller joints make decent 'za too, sometimes for a smaller price.

Yes, we should support smaller businesses. They know the community and support it as well. Most-importantly, most small businesses don't give shit tons of money to right-winged hate groups. True, some are run by conservatives (and some sadly do sell guns, like my childhood supermarket), but considering that most small business owners are not billionaires, it does become something to consider.

Speaking of the grocery business, I read about a grocery store near Cadillac that had to close recently because they needed a new roof. Sadly, they couldn't compete with Walmart and Meijer just 10 miles away, so they closed. Further up north in Ellsworth, pop. 400, the town's grocery closed down, though the owners claimed that it was "just for the season", though it's for sale for $90,000. In the description, it talks about the building - a former Viking Foods store - being used for anything but being a supermarket.

With Ellsworth Market's closure, it leaves the town without a spot even to buy basic necessities, like milk or bread. The nearest place is now seven miles down the road in East Jordan, which has a SpartanNash-owned Family Fare and a Save-a-Lot. Ellsworth does have a gas station, but it's the local farmer's co-op. So you can buy charcoal, but not milk. Ellsworth has a school system, but without a grocery store, there's not much tax base to support the schools. Ellsworth's downtown mostly consists of a bar, the aforementioned co-op and not much else.

Look, if the local Pizza Hut had a similar situation to what The Mitten had to deal with, eh, no problem. But since this is a man with a wife and kid, it's a different situation. All I can say is that I hope they can get through this melee and stay open. As for Great Lakes Energy, SHAME ON THEM for pissing on a small business owner like this. I hope that the meter reader who didn't know about the second meter gets canned or at least demoted so he or she won't read another meter ever again.

Here's an idea: maybe somebody should donate The Mitten a SOLAR PANEL so they can live off the grid!

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