THE POLITICS OF PIZZA DELIVERY

For Willie Kennedy, a 72-year-old grandmother and former member of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, it was a clear-cut issue of racism: last March a Domino's Pizza and a Mr. Pizza Man refused to deliver to her grandson William Fobbs at his home in a predominantly black area near Candlestick Park. The Domino's franchise, like most Domino's Pizzas across the country, used a software system that color-codes streets according to risk; a large swath of Fobbs' neighborhood had been "red-zoned," meaning it was deemed too dangerous to serve.

Livid, Kennedy got the Board of Supervisors to pass the country's first ordinance making it illegal for any firm to deny delivery to an address in its business service area. "These people feel that all black people are the same," says Kennedy of the taxicabs, restaurants and furniture stores that redline service. "We all kill, we all maim, and therefore we should suffer. But there is crime all over this city." Indeed, when a Domino's deliveryman was murdered in San Francisco in 1994, it happened in a designated safe, or "green," zone.

Last week, only days after the ordinance went into effect, the board voted to amend it and allow businesses to exercise "reasonable" judgment in delivering to certain spots. Kennedy called this a "stab in the back," but board president Kevin Shelley insists the revision is needed to address legitimate issues of worker safety. Domino's spokesman Tim McIntyre points out that Domino's delivers to more inner-city areas than most chains--and says the computer system helps them do it safely.