Do you know Dave?
Dave’s the hot dog guy that’s been outside of PennDot on Front Street for nearly fourteen years.
Fourteen years.
I don’t think that there are many of us who can say that we’ve done any one thing for fourteen years.
But since nineteen ninety four, Dave from Toms River, New Jersey has been slingin’ Sabretts with chili and cheese, kraut and mustard, ketchup and red onions and virtually any variation of the aforementioned condiments to tired PennDot visitors, state employees and to me- yesterday- when I had no business at PennDot other than to get a hot dog.
It was around two thirty in the afternoon and I was hungry for a couple-a dogs with kraut and mustard and a cold can of Coke.
The Let’s Do Lunch guys on both Third and Second had closed up shop for the day. The girl with the cart on State and Second outside the copy shop was nowhere to be found. Nonna’s stopped serving them a couple of months ago and I just didn’t really feel like going to Jimmy The Hot Dog King in the Uptown Plaza.
So when I scooted into the parking lot of the PennDot Compound, I was elated to see Dave the Hot Dog Guy right where I expected him and I sauntered up, almost demanding my dawgs at this point.
“Didja hear? They’re throwin me outta here at the end uh dah month” Dave the Hot Dog Guy informed me as he pointed to the letter he received from Property Management, Inc- the firm who manages the building.
“What?! Get the [expletive deleted] outta here! Wh..who…what the hell for, man!?” I exclaimed.
“Ya got me, brah.” Dave muttered in his thick south-Jersey accent. “Some guy just gave me this letter two weeks ago and said I gotta be gone on the 31st”.
Obviously, the PennDot employees and pseudo-regulars at PennDot (like myself) were outraged. Dave has collected nearly nine hundred signatures so far from patrons wishing PMI would change their minds.
When I asked him if he tried to call PMI to try and negotiate something, he said that they actually hung up on him.
So there it is- no reason given. No justification. No opportunity to negotiate. PMI decided it was time to bid farewell to the hot dog guy and there’s not much he can do.
I emailed Brandon Neiss (and you can too- bneiss@rentpmi.com) and informed him of my disappointment at their decision. But at the time that this post went live, I hadn’t gotten a reply from him.
Look, I know it’s just a hot dog cart- but there’s more to it than this. It’s the livelihood of a hard working guy who’s been at his trade for fourteen years- and with the passing of a pen on a thirty-day eviction notice, it’s the end of the road.
No one said that life is fair- but c’mon! It’s the HOT DOG GUY! You can’t evict the HOT DOG GUY!
Feel free to email your thoughts to Brandon- and tell your friends to get down there and enjoy a couple more dogs. One more kraut and mustard, please.
