By Ben Joravsky
His idea wasn’t so much to upscale the store (it’s still wonderfully cluttered) as to organize it. He grouped items by activities, opened a Web site, and bought ads in the local papers. “The previous owner didn’t have shelving–everything was on the floor,” says Lee. “I price things. I group things. I’ve created aisles so you can walk around. It was going great. We’re a small, locally owned shop in the age of sports giants. People like that. I got welcomes from almost everyone.”
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As time went by he noticed the police hovering. “I’d look out the window and there’d be two plainclothes cops in an unmarked squad car watching my shop with binoculars,” says Lee. “I’m thinking, this is strange. Maybe they think we’re fencing stuff out the door. But I’m not like that. I’m keeping receipts of everything. I’m showing them my books.”
In the meantime, the City Council passed an ordinance intended to crack down on the fencing of stolen sporting goods. Ironically, the law’s sponsor was Alderman Eugene Schulter, in whose 47th Ward Lee resides and works. “The idea for the ordinance came from 19th District commander John Minogue,” says Schulter. “He explained to me that there’s a direct correlation between theft and the selling of valuable items at secondhand stores.”
A week later the police returned. “I was out running errands when Jeff gives me a desperate call. He’s says they’re going to throw him into jail. I get the police on the phone and say, ‘I’ll meet you at the station.’ So I rushed over to Belmont and Western just as they brought Jeff in in a paddy wagon. They charged me with operating a business without a secondhand dealer’s license and for not keeping records, even though I had been keeping records.”
“The only comment we have is that he was issued citations twice and was arrested once,” says MariaEllena Dyess, a police spokeswoman.
On Monday Lee finally heard the charges against him. According to a letter he received from the city, he “knowingly possessed stolen property”–two bicycles and a baby jogger. Lee says he vaguely remembers the police confiscating the items last June. “I’m surprised they’re making an issue out of it seven months later when they didn’t make an issue out of it then.”
