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As a press release from now-closed Meeting Street pizzeria-seafood-chicken eatery Via Via IV announced last week, "See? We TOLD you guys we weren't the mafia!"
Via Via's owner, Peter "Fat Petey" Vocciozzi, said he was forced out of business by local restaurant owners who believed him to be involved in organized crime. "I get it, okay?" he said. "We had a mysterious back room, black sheets hung over the windows, and Buddy Cianci was our best customer. But we promised them that we weren't the mafia, and they didn't believe us."
"I'll tell you who the mafia is," Vocciozzi continued. "Urban Outfitters. They were the first ones to accuse us, probably just to get the heat off themselves. Look at them, all shifty-eyed behind the ironic shutter shades in their store window."
"That's ridiculous," said Urban Outfitters Assistant Manager Rodney Wilber. "Why would we be the mafia? We're trying to figure out who it is just like everyone else! If we were the mafia, why would we have put Coldstone out of business?"
"I think it's Starbucks," Wilber continued. "They've been a little too quiet about this whole thing."
"We've been quiet because we're trying to figure out who the mafia is!" protested Starbucks barista Randall Mio.
The search was interrupted by several business owners' complaints that Mayor David Cicilline has been in office for too long and should give someone else a turn at being Mayor. The issue was put to a vote, wherein the left side of Thayer Street argued that Angel Taveras should be Mayor for the next term.
To add to the antagonistic climate, several members of Paragon's waitstaff have been accused of peeking in on the secret mafia meetings held in the Mayor's office every night. Late last week, Kabob & Curry publicly threatened to force Paragon out of business next if they kept it up.
In a shocking twist, however, the Mayor announced that Shades Plus had gone bankrupt instead. Owner Ina Martina expressed disappointment. "It's not like anyone thought we were the mafia," she said, marking a large cardboard box "Anime Character Pencils/Stale Sour Apple Candy Necklaces" as she packed up her store. "Part of me thinks they just put us out of business because they didn't want to be around us. This game tends to bring out the worst in people."
"You know, the game of small business ownership," she added.
Some residents are starting to suspect that more than one local business may be involved with the mob. "It's a little weird how vehemently Au Bon Pain is defending Tedeschi's price increases," said Wilber. "Then again, it's also a little weird how much time the Mayor of Providence spends dramatically narrating what's going on in our businesses and telling us to go to sleep every night."
At press time, several business owners reported that hunting down the perpetrators of organized crime and forcing them out of town was more boring than expected and that they probably should have just played beer pong instead.
