MARKETPLACE
"WHAT'S NEWS?"
PAGE 11 , JUNE , 1977
You've heard this before, "You
can lead a horse to water, but,
you can ' t make him drink . " That
was told us by a well known op-
erator while discussing our sug-
gestion for a $10 " service charge"
off the top of every collection,
and splitting the balance of the
collection 70/30 - 70% to the op-
erator. He not only agreed with
us , more than that , he showed us
some of his bills for an average
week ' s expenses and stated, "Un-
less we get a service charge and
eliminate 50/50 , lots of us won ' t
be around to greet ' 78 . " Maybe a
"horse" (and there are many oper-
ator- horses around today) won ' t
drink when you lead him to water. But, brother, wait , wait just a bit longer . More and
more operator-horses are getting thirstier and thirstier - for cash. Betcha me , when
they get thirsty enough - they ' ll drink - any plan to keep 'em from going busted.
Michael Kogan of Taito Corp . , Tokyo , Japan , the firm also has 50 local
branches as well as offices all over the world, reading in the past
March ' 77 issue of "Marketplace" of our proposed biz trip thruout the
far east, quickly wrote to ask when we planned to arr ive in Tokyo,
so that he ' d be there to greet us . One of the very sweetest letters we
have ever received, and for which we most sincerely thank Mike Kogan .
(At this time , with Mrs . Gersh ill , we don ' t know just when we shall
be able to make this trip . ) • • • Old timers will recall that the late
Bill Wrigley intro ' d "P. K. s" when his son, Phillip K. Wrigley was born.
Last month, P ,K, Wrigley passed away. Jim Bishop, outstanding author
and grand columnist, writing about P.K ., had asked Wrigley "after a
couple of doubles" of whiskey, if he ever had bad dreams . "Yessir" ,
Wrigley replied, " and it ' s always the same one . I dream that some man
with a short temper has put a coin in a Wrigley gum machine and noth-
ing comes out . It gives me the sweats . " • • • U.S . sues 6 top cigaret
makers . Federal Trade Comm is suing American , Brown & Williamson, Lig-
gett , Lorillard, Phillip Morris and Reynolds , to learn how much money
they spend promoting and advertising tobacco which, FTC claims , it needs for a report to
Congress . Cig makers claim FTC does not keep such inf'o conf'idential . (Cig machine opera-
tors would also like to read this report . After all , cig machines should be getting over
double from the big mogul billion dollar cig makers for use of columns in machines, which
are the finest kind of point-of-sale advertising the cig makers could ever get . )
The young man in the middle , Billy O' Donnell , with
Marv Roth of Wilkes-Barre on his right and Si Redd
of Reno on his left, decided the coinbiz was for
him . Not only because he likes the challenge and
the action but, even more , because he likes peopl e .
Billy, back in his college days , was a star quarter-
back. He just has that knack of leadership. So, as
the years whizz by, keep your eyes on this young
man "in the middle". • • • Sol (Everything ' s Great)
Tabb of North Miami , Florida, loves people, loves
to shmooz for hours on end, loves to be host to a
couple of dozen good eaters , most especiall y l oves
outstanding atmosphere and beautiful surroundings .
To therefore report that Sol is in l ove with all the Doral golf courses, would be put-
ti~ it very ~ildly, indeed. So when a dear friend gave Sol a year ' s pass to the Doral
courses - well , dun ' t esk , Even a thousand great games on Sol ' s route , working perfectly,
couldn ' t equal the thrill that pass gave Sol .