Jose Andujar pulled his blue Oldsmobile over to the curb and coasted in front of a line of apartment buildings near the intersection of Foster and Wayne Avenues, shining a flashlight at the buildings to find the right address.
”There it is,” he said, pulling up to a building near the corner.
”It`s hard to see the numbers at night.”
Andujar delivers pizza, soda pop and liquor for Laurie`s Pizzeria & Liquors, 5153 N. Broadway, which borders the Edgewater and Uptown neighborhoods. He took the job about a month ago to make ends meet until he could find another position as a carpenter.
But just as the recession has made more people turn to jobs like delivering pizzas to pad their incomes or merely survive, the drivers have caught the eye of criminals, also out to make a few extra bucks during hard times.
Drivers recently received two stark reminders of the dangers when one pizza deliverer was killed and another seriously injured on their routes.
Perhaps no other delivery, other than the mail, cuts across as many economic and demographic lines as that of taking pizza to people`s doorsteps. Deliverers may go from tony high-rises to crime-laden tenements within minutes. And the nature of the job-walking alone at night often to unfamiliar destinations while carrying a conspicuous box and collecting money-makes its practitioners particularly obvious prey.
Managers from city and suburbs alike have become more concerned about their drivers` safety.
”Criminals just look for easy targets, and delivery people are easy targets,” said Robert Jones, the manager of Italian Fiesta Pizzerias, 1919 E. 71st St. and 7834 S. Halsted St.
”Am I concerned? Sure,” Andujar said while driving through Uptown on a recent Friday evening a little before midnight on his way to a delivery. ”If I`m going to some crazy neighborhood, I call and tell the people to meet me downstairs.”
”It helps to have a street sense,” said Andujar, 39, whose lanky, youthful look is offset by a salt-and-pepper goatee. ”I`m from Jersey. I can pick up things a little easier.”
Drivers at Laurie`s make $1.50 for every pizza they deliver, plus tips. Andujar said he considers a decent tip to be about $1.50, but sometimes he pockets as much as $6.
Andujar said he has learned to case out unfamiliar areas before getting out of his car. If he doesn`t get good vibes from a group of young men standing in the entryway of a building, he finds a pay phone and asks the customer to meet him at his car.
On Oct. 21, not long after Andujar started his job, Jeffrey Carlyle, a Laurie`s driver, was shot in the head during a robbery on the 1300 block of West Estes Avenue. The robber escaped with $18, police said. Carlyle is in good condition at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, according to a hospital spokeswoman.
On Oct. 10, Bradley Kracht, 37, was fatally shot in the chest at about 2 a.m. as he was about to deliver a pizza in the 4800 block of West Adams Street. When his body was discovered by a passerby, his pockets had been picked and the pizza taken, police said.
”It`s a crime of opportunity, no doubt about it,” said Grand-Central Sgt. Lee Eplen. ”Some people will call for a pizza, then wait in gangways for a driver.”
Although many pizza delivery shops tell their drivers not to carry more than $20 in cash, Eplen said that many drivers trying to make extra money by making several deliveries on a run may have as much as $200 on them.
Luigi Borelli, the Laurie`s manager for more than 30 years, said that he tries to minimize the dangers.
”First, we verify the order to be sure it is not a funny order,” he said while removing a pizza from a giant oven. ”We make sure the phone number matches the address.” Borelli said that people have been known to give phony address and ambush drivers.
At Domino`s Pizza, extra precautions are taken in high-crime neighborhoods.
”We`re a little more security conscious,” said Walter Thies, vice president of marketing for RPM Pizza, which owns and operates Chicago Domino`s. Precautions in ”safety areas” include double callbacks to customers before a delivery is made and sometimes sending two drivers on runs to dangerous areas.
In some neighborhoods, drivers are instructed to remove the Domino`s sign from their car tops in order to make them less of a target.
”We are more concerned about people being safe in those areas than we are with advertising,” Thies said.
Dana Wittmann, director of safety and insurance for RPM Pizza, said: ”We have caller identification at every store,” referring to the device that identifies the numbers of incoming calls. ”If they give us a different telephone number, we are very leery. That`s a red flag right there.”
Drivers also are told not to leave the store with more than $15, Wittman said. ”That`s our biggest deterrent.” Part of the chain`s strategy is to publicize that their drivers don`t carry much cash, hoping to persuade robbers it`s not worth it to rob a Domino`s driver.
Borelli said there are certain blocks in Uptown and Rogers Park where Laurie`s won`t deliver. ”Like the 4800 block of North Winthrop is very bad,” he said.
But as Borelli knows, even taking the best of precautions doesn`t always work. He was working the night Carlyle didn`t return from his run.
After a half-hour, Borelli called the police and learned that the driver was fighting for his life.
Fear of crime isn`t limited to city streets.
”I`m always concerned about where our drivers are going,” said Mark Mellen, manager of a Pizza Hut in Schaumburg. ”I think about it every day.” Mellen said he constantly reminds his drivers to be alert. If they are called to make a delivery to a house where the lights aren`t on, they are told to call the store to make sure they aren`t being set up for an ambush.
Drivers should not be lulled into thinking they are safe in the suburbs, Mellen said. ”There are always risks, you are never going to get away from that.”
Another rule at Domino`s and many other pizza restaurants is that drivers aren`t allowed to carry weapons. ”We beg our people not to resist. We tell them to give (robbers) whatever they ask for.”
In July, a 43-year-old Dayton man was fired by Domino`s for violating the policy. William Armour fatally shot a 17-year-old who tried to rob him.
”It`s never been a good idea” for drivers to arm themselves, Eplen said. ”Displaying a weapon or misfiring it could put the driver in more danger than not carrying one, he said.
In August 1991, 28-year-old Dartaginan Jones was shot in the head while delivering a pizza in the 100 block of East 70th Street. He worked for Italian Fiesta Pizzeria. The 14-year-old suspect, who was later charged with murder, was arrested while trying to escape in Jones` car.
”Just a couple of weeks ago, a driver had his window shot out near 81st and Muskegon Avenue,” Jones said.
Charles Oliver, a 46-year-old driver for Fiesta, said he`s not scared, just cautious, and that he has never been robbed. ”I try to get out of the car without being noticed,” he said, adding that he usually puts the pizzas in the trunk to guard against vandalism while making a delivery.
Oliver started delivering pizzas when he was laid off from a sales job three years ago.
”You can make some nice money and get it the same day,” said Oliver, who makes $1.50 a delivery, plus tips.
”It`s laid back and nobody`s pushing you,” Andujar said. ”You`re driving at night when there`s no traffic.”
He said he may continue to deliver pizzas a couple of nights a week even if he finds a carpentry job.
So far, his street sense has kept him safe, Andujar said after dropping off a large pizza and a couple of Cokes to a man on West Pratt Avenue, winding up an uneventful night.
”I enjoy my job,” he said. ”It keeps me out of trouble.”
