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Illinois is no stranger to odd, larcenous or rough-and-tumble elections.<\/p>\nIllinois is no stranger to odd, larcenous or rough-and-tumble elections.<\/p>\n
But only here, it seems, has a candidate collapsed so ingloriously that he brought dishonor on what many consider a shame-proof industry: pawnbroking.<\/p>\n
The Illinois Democratic Party is not the only statewide organization trying to step out of the cloud that hung over Scott Lee Cohen\u2019s exit as the party\u2019s nominee for lieutenant governor — the Illinois Pawnbrokers Association is trying to save face, too.<\/p>\n
Mr. Cohen, the state\u2019s first pawnbroker politician, managed to leave a blot on the ledger of an industry that could do without the extra stain. <\/span><\/p>\n Mr. Cohen converted instantly from the pride of his industry to a public embarrassment for it when a former prostitute said that he had held a knife to her throat during an argument when the two were dating in 2005.<\/p>\n David Schoeneman, president of the Illinois Pawnbrokers Association and owner of Shane\u2019s-The Pawn Shop in Chicago Heights, this week found himself sharing the same defensive crouch taken by distressed Democratic Party leaders once the abuse accusation surfaced.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen somebody gets caught being a bad guy, you cringe,\u201d Mr. Schoeneman said. \u201cSame for doctors, lawyers, priests. People are people.\u201d<\/p>\n News of Mr. Cohen\u2019s troubles, which led to his resignation from the Democratic ballot on Sunday, reached Mr. Schoeneman late last week during a layover at the Minneapolis airport as he returned from a vacation in the Philippines.<\/p>\n Mr. Schoeneman recalled that the last time he had vacationed out of the country, state and local police in Evanston announced the arrests of 30 individuals in connection with an undercover pawnshop sting.<\/p>\n Aside from the Evanston arrests, Mr. Schoeneman said, the pawnbrokering industry in Illinois had had little to fear from bad headlines \u0097 until now.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pawn industry has a roundly undeserved bad reputation,\u201d he said. \u201cAny time there is anything negative in the press, we roll our eyes and say, \u2018Oh jeez, just what we need.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n Pawnshops have labored for decades to shake off a stubborn reputation for shadiness and desperation, codified in popular culture, like in the 1964 film \u201cThe Pawnbroker.\u201d<\/p>\n The industry contends that it provides a necessary service in offering secured loans, but critics say it takes advantage of people in vulnerable financial situations by charging extraordinarily high interest.<\/p>\n The police say, too, that unscrupulous pawnbrokers provide an outlet that makes it easy for thieves and burglars to fence stolen goods.<\/p>\n Even before Mr. Cohen bowed out of the race during halftime of the Super Bowl, Dave Crume, president of the National Pawnbrokers Association, put out a statement criticizing the news media for routinely invoking Mr. Cohen\u2019s profession, \u201cas a negative connotation to discredit Mr. Cohen and to sway public opinion for the benefit of an important political race.\u201d<\/p>\n Baxter Swilley, Mr. Cohen\u2019s spokesman, also took issue with the characterization. Mr. Cohen made most of his money in real estate, and the pawnshop was simply \u201cthe most sensational component of his identity,\u201d Mr. Swilley said.<\/p>\n Mr. Cohen\u2019s campaign has blamed media disclosures about the abuse accusation and his former use of steroids for forcing him out of the race for lieutenant governor.<\/p>\n Once Mr. Cohen\u2019s troubles came to light, he said this week, the Democratic Party leadership was eager to slot a longtime politician onto the ballot rather than an outsider like him.<\/p>\n Mr. Cohen\u2019s fellow pawnbrokers do not appreciate the steady stream of slights they have taken because of his campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I heard it, I felt like spitting,\u201d said Steve Greenfield, owner of Jewels by Stephanie in downtown Chicago, which has been in his family since his grandfather bought the store in 1918.<\/p>\n As evidence of the industry\u2019s responsible side, Mr. Greenfield notes the heavy regulation of pawnshops, which must comply with numerous federal laws, including the USA Patriot Act.<\/p>\n In Illinois, the Pawnbroker Regulation Act governs the state\u2019s approximately 225 stores.<\/p>\n Mr. Cohen\u2019s pawnshop, State Pawners & Jewelers, based on South Ashland Avenue, has caused considerably less of a stir than his brief political career. .<\/p>\n \u201cHis shop is a paid member in good standing of the Illinois Pawnbrokers Association,\u201d said Mr. Schoeneman, who had dinner with Mr. Cohen a few months ago but has not spoken to him since the political scandal broke. \u201cI have no qualms with his business.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am sorry for him to have to go through all of that,\u201d Mr. Schoeneman said, \u201cbut that having been said, it is what it is and he did what he had to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe Brooks, owner of T.N. Donnelly and Company, Chicago\u2019s oldest pawnshop, said he thought that the industry had begun to turn the corner on its shady reputation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought so, until somebody got their name into the paper,\u201d Mr. Brooks said. \u201cWe have been trying our best to project ourselves as something other than that, and apparently it didn\u2019t get there. The message didn\u2019t get out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know any pawnbrokers sitting in jail,\u201d he added, \u201cbut I know a couple of governors and aldermen. If anything, \u2018politician\u2019 should be a dirtier word than \u2018pawnbroker.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n Read the original article from the Chicago News Cooperative<\/a>.<\/p>\n Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n Illinois is no stranger to odd, larcenous or rough-and-tumble elections. But only here, it seems, has a candidate collapsed so ingloriously that he brought dishonor on what many consider a shame-proof industry: pawnbroking. The Illinois Democratic Party is not the only statewide organization trying to step out of the cloud that hung over Scott Lee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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