The Theft Problem at The ONU C-Store

This Wednesday, the students, staff and faculty received an email from Financial Affairs stating that the 24-hour c-store would be closing for an indefinite period due to an increase in theft resulting in a net loss for the university. I live off campus and don't have any dining dollars, so I haven't been to the c-store in a long time unless I'm with friends on a meal plan. However, I know their prices. The tuition here has risen three times since I've been here, the snacks at the c-store are wildly overcharged, and the items at the bookstore seem to be catered to millionaires. All of this to say, I don't blame the thieves.

Living at ONU is expensive. Especially when you care about your diet and require food more than the dining hall food. On weekends, there are times in the afternoon when neither WOW nor the dining hall is open. After a night of partying, this is detrimental to a student, having to wait until dinner just to eat for the day. When the c-store was first implemented, it was a game-changer. You could go at any time, whether it's a snack between classes or a midnight snack. Nobody complained about the crumby dining hall hours or the bad diet.

In my experience, going to the c-store and seeing a small box of cereal cost around $15 makes me have no sympathy for the c-store losses. If they had regular prices and saw us as a community, instead of an opportunity to make a profit off of demand, I might have stronger feelings about it. In my current understanding of the situation, I think that the university should handle this differently, lowering prices, introducing different forms of payment, changing their meal plans, etc. This is just another example of businesses and organizations that run like businesses failing to connect to their target market and unintentionally cause conflict.