Dozens of businesses call city hotline with pope weekend worries

More than 100 calls and emails have flowed into the city Commerce Department this week from businesses seeking help in maneuvering amid tight papal security in central Philadelphia next month.

Most merchants using a new hotline and website expressed concerns about how their employees would get to work and how necessary supplies would be delivered in the 4.7-square-mile area that will be off-limits to inbound traffic, officials said.

"I think people want clarity about what's going on," Deputy Mayor Alan Greenberger said Thursday. He said concerns expressed this week have been largely similar to what officials had been hearing before, though the hotel industry surprised him with one:

What about our linens?

With the Secret Service prohibiting vehicles from entering a large section of the city's core from late Sept. 25 through the weekend of Pope Francis' visit, hotel operators said they were worried about how they will ship out dirty sheets and towels to laundry services and get enough clean ones back to serve the papal pilgrims staying with them.

The city's response, Greenberger said, is similar to what it has told other merchants flummoxed by the logistical hurdles posed by Secret Service-mandated security measures, for which details have been introduced in phases by Mayor Nutter in recent weeks:

"We're working on it."

Since Monday, a team of 10 Commerce Department employees has been answering four phones with calls from a new hotline (215-683-2100). An online Business Resource Center is also available for pope-related email queries (www.phila.gov/commerce). The aim is to offer quick and detailed help to any business perplexed by the slew of forthcoming restrictions during the pope's visit.

By midweek, the pace of incoming queries was considerable, if not overwhelming. One employee, Samuel Chueh, smiled Thursday as he described it this way: "A lot of phone calls."

Chueh said he handled about 10 papal calls Wednesday while juggling another 10 from his day-to-day duties as point man for South Philadelphia merchants.

Chueh said he directed many people to papal-visit maps available at www.phila.gov, and entered more complex questions into a database for review by his superiors.

"Where can I park?" "I want a refrigerated truck; can I park in front of my business?" were some of the business owners' questions, from restaurateurs to hair salon owners.

Other inquiries regard planned SEPTA routes.

How can an employee who lives in West Philadelphia get to a Center City hotel job if only a few stations on the Market-Frankford El will be open? How can workers get deeper into Center City if some trains stop at 30th Street?

Chueh's answer, more often that not, has been the refrain that city officials are increasingly echoing, given highway and bridge closures and the ribbon of real estate from the Philadelphia Museum of Art east to the Delaware River that will be surrounded by a fence and security scanners.

"People need to be ready to walk a lot," Chueh said.

Greenberger said most calls were "legitimate" - what highway exits will be open, whether a business falls within the security zone where parked cars will be banned, how the fenced-in core will affect employees who work at the five hotels inside the perimeter.

Food merchants also reiterated that they are worried about running out of food. Greenberger said the city was still working on a plan to allow limited deliveries into the traffic box.

The city also is exploring the possibility of intermediate trash pickup, he said, since private haulers used by businesses will be barred from entering the traffic box.

"The best thing you can do is get as much product as you can store delivered by Thursday," Greenberger advised, "and hold your trash until Monday, just like you would if there was a [labor] strike."

Each afternoon after the 9-to-5 hotline shuts down, Greenberger and his deputies sift through the queries and report to the Office of Emergency Management, Secret Service, and Police Department.

Answers are coming back from those officials, he said, in less than a day, and are being communicated back to merchants.

"We're not telling people you have to be open," Greenberger said. "But they clearly have to make a plan."

215-854-2431 @Panaritism