The Barber Who Stole His Own Shop
Facing a rent hike, a Tacoma barber dismantled his entire business and vanished into the night.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
An amusing incident occurred before daylight yesterday morning. Fritz Krieble appeared as the principal actor, and it is said he stole his own barber shop. Another barber, La Bounty, had a conference with Krieble's creditors and agreed to take his shop, provided he was given credit for the amount of money Krieble had paid on his stock. Krieble asked for a $130 bonus but did not get it. Then he went to work and at midnight began stripping the shop of everything. He took bathtubs, fixtures, chairs—everything except the cement flooring. In order to freeze him out, his rent was to have been raised from $50 to $100 per month beginning today. Krieble is a well-known character, being one of the leading colored barbers here, and was formerly proprietor of the Hammam baths.
“He took bathtubs, fixtures, chairs, everything except the cement flooring.”
Fritz Krieble’s midnight heist is a classic tale of commercial desperation that hits home in modern Seattle, where small businesses are regularly forced out by soaring commercial rents. It is a reminder that the physical 'bones' of a city—its fixtures and infrastructure—are often the last things sacrificed when the landlord wins.
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