(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The White Sox have played in the Bridgeport neighborhood on the South Side for more than a century, and now a possible move has business owners concerned.
“I think it’s horrible,” says Carrie Stegmiller, a manager at Turtles Bar & Grill on West 33rd Street, in the shadow of Guaranteed Rate Field.
“For so many of us … this has been this way our entire lives, our parents’ lives, our kids’ lives,” she tells WBBM Newsradio.
She said baseball season keeps businesses afloat for the entire year.
On 33rd Street, Mario Scalise, the owner of Stix and Brix Pizza, is a little more circumspect.
“From their perspective, it’s probably a good move,” he said of owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s idea to build a publicly assisted stadium closer to the Loop, near Clark and Roosevelt.
Still, people asked about the plan said taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for any new Sox ballpark and that owners should focus more on having a better team.
Bridgeport resident and lifelong White Sox fan Dominic Scumaci offered criticism about Reinsdorf.
“As far as I can remember, he’s had me in a toehold of mediocrity my whole life,” he said.
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