Sanibel Island, Florida, January 3, 2007 –
We have come here for the sun and sand and surf, but we have found a lesson for a small Island in New York City’s East River.

Sanibel Island is unlike Roosevelt Island in important ways. But it is very much about tourism, and the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation has said that Roosevelt Island, too, should find ways to attract tourists.

Last year, RIOC’s real-estate consultant, in a move then endorsed by RIOC President Herb Berman, was working on getting a Dunkin’ Donuts / Baskin-Robbins operation here. The theory, Berman said, was that a first chain operation would soon bring others and Main Street’s empty retail storefronts would soon be filled. To pave the way for the donuts and ice cream, Gallery RIVAA was to be displaced and relocated.

Given a similar chance for a chain, Sanibel Island went another way. Over the years, this Gulf Coast island had grown up gradually with family-owned restaurants, small businesses, and the kind of mom-and-pop operations that characterized small-town America before fast food became the thing. Stores like She Sells Sea Shells and Huxter’s Grocery & Deli, and eateries like Gramma Dot’s Seaside Saloon, The Island Cow (where the food is "udderly good"), and The Mucky Duck served the island’s needs, just as Capri Pizza, Trellis, the Island Newstand, and M&D Deli have served Roosevelt Islanders.

As Sanibel became gentrified and new construction energized its economy, it became an attractive market. In 1992, McDonald’s paid nearly $600,000 for a lot on Periwinkle Way and it appeared the very effect sought by RIOC for Roosevelt Island might come to Sanibel.

Then, rather quickly and decisively, Sanibel Islanders took a united stand: No McDonald’s. Even 53% of schoolchildren, a driving force for McDonald’s elsewhere, voted against Ronald. "Our students feel as though they are the keepers of the island," the school principal explained.

As RIOC has too often done, McDonald’s tried to minimize the protest, characterizing it as a "vocal minority that only appears to be a majority." (Sound familiar?) The "vocal minority" came up with a specific strategy: Ban drive-through windows. It made sense on a small Island with traffic problems enough. The city commissioned a pair of studies, each of which endorsed the proposed ban. One report put it this way: "Sanibel... markets itself as ‘unique.’ If it has all the normal strip commercial uses, that sense of uniqueness is lost." Another way of putting it: If we’re like everywhere else, there’s no reason to come here.

On Roosevelt Island, of course, a vote by schoolchildren wouldn’t matter. A vote by residents wouldn’t matter. We have no say. We didn’t under George Pataki, anyway.

On Sanibel Island, the city took the McDonald’s case a step further. In 1996, right around the time George Pataki appointed Dr. Jerry Blue to run Roosevelt Island, Sanibel put a new law into effect: No "formula" restaurants allowed, "formula" being defined as a chain with more than three outlets with the same or similar name, menu, uniforms, and exterior.

That’s the lesson for NYC10044: Like Sanibel Island, Roosevelt Island is – and should remain – something different. Something special.

DL