Jerry Gustafson just wants to be left alone to sell his bicycles. As he sees it, it’s a way for a man trying to survive on Social Security to stay in his house.
Most days, all you see are three bikes, chained tightly together at the curb of his tree-lined south Denver street, each priced from $99 to $199. On this day, he also was offering a child’s Spider-Man two-wheeler. Forty-five bucks.
The neighbors and, therefore, the city probably would have known nothing of this, except he keeps a “Bikes For Sale” sign spiked right at the corner of his lawn on busy South Tamarac Drive.
“I know who told on me,” Gustafson says as we stand in the garage where he keeps his newer, more expensive bikes. “It was the old fuddy-duddies across the street.”
Two weeks have passed since an inspector from the city’s Community Planning & Development office knocked on his door. There was a complaint, the inspector said, and to his mind, it appears Gustafson is violating an ordinance that allows only periodic, garage sale-type retailing in residential areas.
He would give him 30 days to shut it all down.
Gustafson is now in a severe pickle. Selling the bikes he gets from friends or on consignment allows him to remain here in his split-level ranch. The thought of going to a tiny apartment, or worse, some assisted-living joint, well, he refuses to contemplate it.
The man is 76 years old. And outside of the little Social Security he receives, the bike sales are his only income.
The inspector, he said, was “very professional about it — not a bully at all. In fact, I think he felt sorry for me. I just told him I’m not hurting anyone.”
If there is a problem, it is that the great-grandfather of three is too good a salesman. He has been one all of his life, starting at age 10 when he virtually cornered the sale of blackberries in his native Seattle.
“I’d get cut up a bit, but I’d sell them by the bucketful,” he smiles.
He sells at least 10 bikes a month. At this moment, there are seven bicycles in his garage priced no lower than $550, a few for nearly $1,000.
At least 10 people a day, lured by his yard sign, pull in to inspect his bikes. Thesia Williams, 43, was on her way to lunch.
She wanted a bicycle to give her husband for Father’s Day. Gustafson was selling her hard on the $199 blue road bike at the curb.
She offers $150. He counters at $175 and refuses to budge. The woman drives away.
“That bike is worth every nickel of $200,” Gustafson says softly when I chide him for accepting nothing when $150 could be now in his pocket.
It is the way he does business, he shrugs.
He has hired an attorney but is hopeful he will soon make a deal with the city. He has told the lawyer to do everything he can to keep the bike sales going.
“You know, I think I’m doing a favor to the world,” he says. “The more bikes I sell, the less toxic crap there will be and the healthier people will be.” But it’s more than just that.
“My life is entirely based on this,” Gustafson said. “I don’t bother anyone. I don’t have, you know, dancing girls on the porch, luring people in.”
He stops.
“I wouldn’t mind that, though,” he grins, “too much.”
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
