Market Share Jim Clancy’s Fruit Stand Is Not A Job, It’s A Passion - All Profits Go Back Into The Local Community

It’s 8:45 a.m. and Jim Clancy’s mouth is already warmed up.

His banter is familiar to the customers at his fruit stand. They laugh as they pick through green peppers and firm peaches. For most of the 12 hours a day he runs the stand, he is a dervish of continual motion and words.

“Yeah, try those peaches, they’re honeys, yeah those over there, no, cherries in tomorrow, okay, that’ll be a buck twenty, hey, your wife doesn’t know the difference between blackberries and huckleberries, she don’t care.”

Clancy, 68, has done this routine six months a year for the last four years. He usually doesn’t take a break at lunch; he eats a sandwich and drinks his Diet Pepsi while weighing fat Walla Walla onions.

His fruit stand, at the corner of Ash and Maxwell, is a passion, not a job. He loves it.

“This is a poor neighborhood, and people need it,” said Clancy, who lives off Air Force and Spokane Transit Authority pensions. “I wouldn’t do it if it weren’t for the people - me liking people, people liking me.” The West Central neighborhood loves him. All the profits made from the stand - an estimated $12,000 this year - will be donated to local charities, mostly benefiting law enforcement.

Clancy estimates he has donated about $45,000 to causes ranging from DARE to rape relief services since opening the stand in 1991.

His customers are as loyal and regular as his prices are low. Cherries are 89 cents per pound, peppers are six for $1.

“I go up to Albertson’s and tell all the women shopping they are shopping at the wrong store,” said Susan Banegas.

“This is the only place in the neighborhood to shop,” said Charlie Butler.

Clancy makes a 25 percent profit on his goods. The fruit stand has no overhead costs because the Maxwell House Tavern gives him free sidewalk space and a plug-in for his electric scale.

To save money, he gets up at 5:30 a.m. to pick corn, cucumbers and other produce at Spokane Valley farms. It takes him three trips and more than an hour to ferry produce from a cold-storage warehouse to his fruit stand.

Clancy’s work has been honored by the national Foot Printers organization, a group that promotes good relations between law enforcement and the public. He and Rich Colnane, owner of the Maxwell House, were also honored by the West Central Community Center for donating $200 to a Halloween party.

“He’s a good-hearted character,” said Colnane, Clancy’s longtime friend.

Clancy’s friends also reserve the right to give him a hard time for his loquacious, high-energy manner.

“He absolutely can’t sit still for two minutes and can’t shut up for less than that,” said Colnane. Kay Colnane, Rich’s wife, tells of Clancy running into the street to stop traffic when he heard a fire engine coming.

Clancy says his energy and work ethic comes from his upbringing on a New Jersey farm and a tough Irish grandmother. Clancy remembers her turning over “acres and acres” of soil with a garden fork.

He moved to Spokane in 1949 while in the Air Force. He spent 23 years in the Air Force and another 24 here driving a bus. During Expo ‘74, Clancy worked 180 hours in two weeks, setting an STA record.

He owned a grocery store in Hillyard briefly and pulled beers at the Maxwell House Tavern. He has four children and 11 grandchildren still in the area.

“While I was working, I said this is what I’d do when I retired,” he said, pointing to his stand.

When he retired in 1991, Clancy didn’t hesitate. He took a $2,000 advance from the Foot Printers group, for which he serves as treasurer, and set up shop.

“He’s like most men; he just has a little energy he needs to work off. If he didn’t, he’d probably die,” said Judy Clancy, his wife of 19 years.

Clancy chose the West Central neighborhood, across town from his home in Hillyard, because it is poor. He says many of his customers are the elderly who can’t afford to shop elsewhere and don’t easily make the trip to the Riverfront Park farmer’s market easily.

He gives away free apples to neighborhood children with a smile, then a gruff, “Now get out of here.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo