Fourth Ward Councilwoman Jessica Yorko doesn’t know anything about Sonic Drive-Ins, or so City Pulse reports from a council committee meeting recently.
As one of Yorko’s constituents, I’d be happy to tell her about my personal admiration for Sonic over the years — the fried pickles, the chicken-fried steak sandwiches, the foot-long cheese coneys and cheesy tater tots and the ice-cold Coke with enough carbonation to burn your throat.
Even as a Sonic fan, I can understand, though, why Yorko or other council members might balk at the idea of a tax break for its developer. After all, it’s just a drive-in/thru.
What you are seeing though, with the Lansing Economic Development Corp.’s proposal, is the logical bottom of the city’s slippery slope. Once you decide that businesses can’t or won’t operate in your town without tax help or other public aid, how do you argue against aid to any business that knocks on your door?
For some fun, let’s spin this the other way.
The Sonic site is on South Pennsylvania Avenue in south Lansing. Plenty of residents and businesses on the south side, rightly or wrongly, think they get short shrift from City Hall. All the attention, money and effort go to downtown or Old Town or Michigan Avenue or anywhere that’s not south.
Through the Lansing EDC, the city has given plenty of aid to eateries downtown, yet when a southside project comes up, the answer is no? What gives? Will Troppo provide more jobs than a Sonic? I don’t know. So, what would be the distinction used for denial of this tax break?
I appreciate the council asking questions here, but the city of Lansing nailed its colors to the masts of government help for businesses -- small, medium, large -- a long time ago.
