First Person Singular: Liquor store manager Richard Lee

I used to hang out with my friends a lot when I was going to school, you know, just mess around. I guess my dad thought I wasn’t being very productive, so I was dragged [to my father’s liquor store] to kind of straighten my attitude out. And I’ve been here ever since. Sometimes I feel, Oh, I should have studied a little bit harder, followed a different career path, but you can’t cry over spilt milk, right? I’m not ashamed of what I do; it’s an honest living. I work hard, feed the family. And the harder I work, the better I do.

When I first started, I used to take things personal, like the Asian remarks and stuff like that. And dealing with rude customers. But now I just shrug it off: “Do you want to buy it or not?”
I don’t really let it bother me. Why ruin my day? I’ve been doing this a long time now, and I think I can tell the people who are kind and the people who are not. You look at how they carry themselves, the way they treat their children. I have customers I talk to every day where I think: They must have been brought up correctly by their families. And others, I just wonder sometimes what happened in their lives, why are they like this, you know? I like dealing with older customers, because they’re easier to talk to, more mellow. And then I like the kids that grew up in the neighborhood that used to have so much attitude, and now that they’re older, they’re like, “Hey, how you doing?” They’re used to me, I guess. The store is almost like a fixture on this corner.

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The neighborhood is changing, though, and a lot of middle-income people are moving in. I’m sure some people feel like liquor store equals evil, you know? That’s why I want to change the image of the store to more customer-friendly. I really want to get rid of this bulletproof glass, because it’s harder to get to know your customers and interact; it feels like there’s a wall. And I think that is one of the reasons [newcomers] don’t want to come in here. I was thinking of taking it down sooner rather than later, but then the store right across the street got robbed, two, three weeks ago, by gunpoint. So I don’t think the neighborhood’s there yet. I think it’ll be a couple of years. But I want to open the store up more, sell more high-end things; I want customers to come in and say, “Oh, the environment’s great there.” I want to build a more successful business than my father built. He lives well right now, but I just want to make this business — in my eyes, I guess — more reputable.

— Interview by KK Ottesen