Fresh Loaf

Effective immediately, companies wishing to do business with the state of Georgia — and be paid with your tax dollars — best not have ties with Sudan.

Gov. Sonny Perdue today signed a bill that prohibits the state from contracting with companies that conduct business or have ties to the African country’s oil, power, mineral and military sectors. Profits from the sectors are widely believed to help perpetrate genocide in the nation’s southern region of Darfur.

Since 2003, more than 400,000 people have been killed and 2.3 million displaced by genocide in the African nation’s southern region of Darfur. The atrocities, which have been condemned by the United States, are carried out by militias funded by the Sudanese government.

“What this says is very simple,” state Sen. David Adelman, D-Decatur, the bill’s sponsor, said after its signing. “If your business or any of its affiliates are engaged in any business activities with the government of Sudan, you cannot do business with the state of Georgia.”

Companies that plan to do business with Georgia state agencies are now required to disclose international business contracts during the Request for Proposal, or RFP, process. If a company falsifies or fails to accurately disclose its ties with Sudan, it could be fined $250,000 or double the bid it submitted to the state, whichever is greater. The company could also lose the contract and be ineligible to bid on state projects for three years.

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Short on cash? Can’t get a loan? Want to sell that stereo, television, or peg leg? There’s always the pawn shop. Stop by Jerry’s Pawn Shop on the corner of Prior and Decatur. Dave Adelman owns Jerry’s Pawn Shop at the corner of Prior and Decatur streets downtown.

Where are you from originally and how did you get into the pawn shop business?
Originally from New Haven, Conn. I moved here in the 1970’s. How I got into the Pawn business was I got married in 1975 to my present wife, and her father was in the pawn business. But I never thought about getting into the pawn business — I had never been in a pawn shop before. I was in between jobs, and we were offered jobs in other cities but we wanted to stay here. So he had an employee in the hospital, and he needed somebody in the store just to help him out. So he asked me to come down and help him in between my job search and the rest is history. I kinda just fell in love with it. That was 30 years ago. It will be thirty years in ’09. (more…)

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