It was a plot that could have been lifted from one of the videotapes Kozmo.com’s delivery service shuttles throughout six markets: Rowdy youths disrupt an urban neighborhood whose residents are helpless to stop them.
But this was no movie, and the youths were Kozmo’s own fleet of bicycle messengers who were chaining their bikes to trees and fences, and noisily congregating on the sidewalks outside one of the company’s distribution centers. Further irking its neighbors, Kozmo, which delivers a wide range of leisure consumer goods, had placed a dumpster in front of the center.
This urban neighborhood, however, was in the heart of New York, and if there’s one thing New Yorkers never admit to, it’s feeling helpless.
Several tenant organizations banded together to confront the delivery service. Initially, according to communiques from the tenant groups, the company ignored their concerns. But a spate of negative publicity, letters to the company’s investors and a missive from a lawyer representing the tenant groups spurred Kozmo to action.
Randolph Scott, star of the war movie “To the Shores of Tripoli” (1942) was not available, so Kozmo settled for the next best thing: It appointed Don Germano, a former first lieutenant of the U.S. Marine Corps, as general manager.
Shortly after Germano’s appointment, Kozmo’s employees were given community sensitivity training. A uniformed security guard was hired to “keep the flow of traffic moving,” according to Edelman PR’s Neil Geary, a Kozmo spokesman.
The company has expanded its on-site employee lounge and provided more space for messengers to store their bikes off the street. And it removed the dumpster.
Kozmo’s next challenge may be harder to deal with: The Equal Rights Center, a Washington civil rights organization, filed suit against the company in mid-April, alleging that Kozmo “redlines,” or denies its services, to minority neighborhoods.
Kozmo says the allegations are false and irresponsible. The company, says Geary, determines where it’s going to deliver based on the number of wired homes in a given area.
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