This is the FCB Podcast Network. This is the Extra. Welcome to the Outlaws Extra. This is Dark the Other King Pen Marldolpher did too. Like us on Facebook and Facebook dot com slash the Outlaws Radio, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the Outlaws Radio. It's a very special edition. We are going to be talking about some really important things that's going on, not only here but all across the country, and that is the issue of violence in general, and gun violence in particular. Brandon Kristowski, who is the proprietor of Edwins, he'll tell you more about that. On the other side, has a really novel idea novel concept of using guns this currency as a way to get some of these guns off of the street. He'll talk about that, He'll talk about what he's doing. He'll talk about his work with not only re entry but also violence prevention and everything as well. So those of you who are familiar with The Outlaws Extras, you know how this goals. We're going to take a break now and then we'll go to the interview in its entirety. So stay tuned. You're listening to the Outlaws Extra. These days, it seems like everybody's talking, but no one is actually listening to the things they're saying. Critical thinking isn't dead, but it's definitely low on oxygen. Join me Kira Davis on Jeff Listen to yourself every week as we reason through issues big and small, critique our own ideas, and learn to draw our talking points all the way out to their logical conclusions. Subscribe to Just Listen to Yourself with Kia Davis an FCB Radio podcasts on Apple, on Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fuck up, welcome back, Welcome back, you're listening to the Outlaws extra. Make sure that you subscribe to the show on Apple, Podcast, Spotify, Ihearted, wherever you get your podcast and if you listen to the show on Apple, please make sure you're leave us a five star review and the comment is very important for the algorithm and for those of you who have already done so, thank you, oh so very much. And now let's get to our interview with Brandon Krstowski from edwins. All Right, we have a very special guest on the show today. He is a world renowned chef entrepreneur. He is involved in the community. We're going to talk about that as well from Edwin's Brandon Krustowski. How did I do? Let's chop? How you doing, sir? Just time to go to Poland now, Man, you got your your Polish accent. Absolutely, absolutely, So we're gonna talk about the initiative that you have going on right now, but first, for people who may not know, give a little bit of a story about your background and everything and what led you to what you're doing right now, and then we'll go from there. Yeah, for sure. So, I mean I was I was in and out of jail when I was younger, and when I was nineteen, I actually stumbled upon a chef who taught me the right way to do things. And he said, you know, it's not practice that makes perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect. At that point, I was living in Detroit. I was able to get out of Detroit and then eventually work around the world. Man Detroit. I was in New York, Chicago, Paris, Central France, and it really learned this trade to the top. And my career was was rocking and rolling man in New York City, and I thought I was gonna be the best chef in the world. And I started getting phone calls from back home about the people I came up with being murdered or put in prison, and in two thousand and four decides to come up with this idea of a French restaurant that trains people who want a second chance. I mean, it took like nine years to get up and running, but I do. Here we are today and so Edwin's functions as a six month training program to men and women coming out of are affected by the criminal justice system. So you learn every position in the restaurants. We give you business basics. You know, safety, sanitation, the gastronomy, you look at profit and laws, statements. It's beautiful. And then when you work every position, you really have an understanding of the industry itself. But we know that it's not enough to do an education. Twenty fifteen and started building housing and so we have free housing. If you're in the program, you need a place to live, we got you covered. We've now expanded with family housing and alumni housing. We've built a campus that includes a kids park, a basketball court, fitness center, a library. We've opened up a butcher's shop, a bakery, a second restaurant. So we just finished our family centers. Now any student or program with children has free childcare and they can drop them off whenever. So we're just continuing to trying to like beat down this this thing called coming home and making sure that that every little obstacle is out of the way so you can, you know, be the best the best you absolutely and tell people for people who don't know, who may not be familiar with the area, the location of where where your development is, the neighborhood around it, that kind of stuff. For sure, we're in Shakers Square, so that's Cleveland, Ohio, and there's two restaurants there about two and a half three blocks up the road on Buckeye in Southmoreland, let's call it one thirty in Buckeye Ish. That's where we have our campus. So we have we have a library there, we have the fitness center, that's where the butcher shop is, the bakery, and you know, all of our all of our amenities. And then if you go one block the other way, that's where our childcare center is. Everything's in Cleveland, with the exception of the childcare center that's actually in shape your heights by about twelve feet, you know, I mean, we're right the right in the border. Yeah, and what's interesting is for people who don't know, and I really want to paint the picture, it's it's almost like a cross section, a cross socio economic section where you have wealthy areas on one side and abject poverty on the other. So it's you're really uniquely positioned in a way almost to kind of bridge the gap, working with people, bringing people in and introducing them to to this new world, so to speak. Yeah, do you know you're saying tail two cities, man, which are three blocks from each other. Absolutely, So speaking of that, Um, we know Cleveland, like many other cities, as suffering a dramatic and very concerning increase in violence and crime and things like that. Talk a little bit about the initiative that you are working on now to kind of try to address that in whatever way you can. Yeah, So, I mean we know what it is, right, I mean, this is the worst we've seen it I think in Cleveland ever, the increase in violence, specifically the gun violence. You know, over twenty shootings on the holiday weekend. Um, it doesn't matter what age you are, man eight to eighty, get you're you know, if we might take a bullet, and you know, our goal is instead of seeing you know, these babies and a baby could be thirty year old baby, that's someone's baby. Um. Instead of seeing someone getting getting killed, we'd like to see them just you know, make it, make a turn. And the incentive we are offering is if you if you turn in your gun to any Edwards' location, you'll have you have two hundred and fifty dollars and spending in any of our spots. So that's our butcher's shop, our bakery, the restaurants. Um. You know, I don't I don't care how how what they spend it on the ideas, guns are the new currency, and and we're hoping that this stimulates a broader impact from whether it's city officials or private sector nonprofits foundations. I mean, I think at some point landlords should be able to accept guns as rent, rent money and then seek reimbursement from the funds that we have in Plethora's right, instead of step looking at all this technology and windmills, Let's try to survive, right, Let's try to keep our kids out of out of the grave, and um and do it in in an unusual way, because no city, no cities all in on this, right, there's there's toy drives for guns, and there's you know, sports tickets, but as a new as a currency, it's um, it's not quite there. And an economical it makes sense. If you get grazed by a bullet, it's a fifty five thousand hospital dollar hospital build minimum fifty five thousand. That's not even like getting hit hard a graze. UM. You know, if you're between six and sixteen years old and you get show, you're you're thirty percent likely to shot again with him three years. So it's not just the cost, it's it's a it's a cycle that's not being broken, and we need to do everything conventional, unconventional, whatever it takes to get these guns off the street. And let's line some people up with UM with a career path of their choice or a job of their choice. It doesn't have to be cooking, believe me, it does not have to be. But I think guns are the first step. So UM. Now, statistically most gun crimes are committed with illegal guns. So I'm assuming that, especially considering you know where most of your locations are and stuff like that, that the goal is to get as many of these illegal guns off the street as possible. You know, we're not asking questions. It's all anonymous. You get a gift card, there's got no no I mean is it's anonymous, right, could be anyone's gift card. So we just want to make sure that we're were saying, like, look at man, you should you turn five guns and you're getting a whole cow. You know, we'll get you. We'll get your head a head of cattle and break it down for you. Um. It's something you could actually use, right, and some people really need it right right. So, UM, I know I grew up in the Inner City and I'm old enough to remember the tail end of the crack era, and you know, it was really bad around that time. And I never thought that I would ever see a time where it was as bad as it was then. And it's getting pretty close. Um, it's getting pretty close to the bad old days. Uh, talk a little bit about what you've seen, um in this upticking crime. What motivated you to want to want to do this? Yeah, it's the biggest impact. I think that's it's it's been made on me is um you know, having children myself, right, I mean, we it's unusually you know, you come up and your your your you're young, you're you you know what I mean, kids and the violence is going on, You're like, it's another day. You're just trying to survive, and you start having kids and you say, you know, these kids are gonna have to live in this world, and you know that that's really made am I mean when I ran from may or, you know, the situation was not as bad as it is now. But it was just looking at looking at the future of our kids and other and others kids, and looking at how they're going to backfill what what when we leave yourself, myself and other other leaders, how's it going to be filled? That's been the driving force behind it. But you know, when you're when you're going to the funerals and you see that, you know, no parents should have to lose their kid or bury their kid, and it's becoming far too common inside inner cities, especially here in Cleveland, and and just the idea that there's not there's not an administration that's that's in touch with what's going on, and they're not going to be And and I've never believed that government will make to change. It's it's about civil societies, about about the private sector. It's about individuals, about groups and leaders coming together to solve these problems. And I just don't want to see another person get shot or hear about another family who's got to bury the child. The child. And I know there's something we can do. It's a small piece to doing something, but we have a large enough voice that it could perhaps impact and and and start an idea in Cleveland that the nation hasn't even thought of. That's handgun to the new currency. Yeah, you just want to stop me. I just want to see it us see things look nice. When I built this childcare center, all of our investment, I've made it in Buckeye and significant. We're now at I don't know, five buildings, two apartment buildings, three or four, five or six buildings. And I was not going to dare put a childcare center out in Buckeye right now. And it probably caused double maybe even more to build and Shaker heights. But I know I can rest easier that these kids are going to be at a place that's safe and it could be outside now to worry about something happening. Um, yeah, it's just time. It's time. It's overdue, right right, So UM, I want to dig in a little bit more on your guns currency concept. Let's let's flesh that out a little bit um because that is definitely an intrigue. And I did something that I haven't heard anyone uh really talk about. So uh hash that out? What what what does guns currency look like? So guns cursy looks like this, there's got to be a more powerful force driving people to give their guns ump and attempts to keep the environment that we all live in safer, right, and and let me like blaming you and you know, LAMB shops are not going to be it. Okay, it's gonna have to be more than that. But if we can get into a system here, So I've got private supporters behind the scenes who will say in their companies and their individuals that will reimburse the money that we're using to buy this product with in exchange for guns. And there's plenty of funds out here. I mean, look, they're looking to spend twenty million on technology to wire a city that most people won't be able to afford the internet. A but B I don't know, man, I'd rather live in and read a book then be dead. And they haven't have to, you know, have some internet for a minute. I think just the priorities and the money in the city right now are such that could develop a program that could reimburse landlords who are receiving guns as rent, or other businesses perhaps grocers that could you receive guns as a form of payment. And we all know the foundation of the philanthropic world across this country as large as huge, and if we all work together, it's possible. It's it's possible. We just have to prioritize safety of the inner city to become number one, and right now it's not number one. And I would argue it's it's it's racially charged. I think when they see black babies die instead of white babies, the money's not as concentrated or as as large. I think we've seen that with this opioid epidemic, which is terrible. You don't want to see anyone go through this, But the reaction there and the money that's spilled and poured over you said you saw it, you know, you didn't think it'd be worse than in the crack epidemic. Look how quick they were to solve and develop systems and technology and resources and testing strips. I mean look at this man. This is out of control. It's it's been met with a greater equal amount of force to you know, stop the hemorrhecheon of of overdoses, although they still happen. But you don't see that with violence. And I'm telling you it's just geographical, it's economical and there's racial um. But but it can be sought by civil society. But we all have to work together to do it. We ought to be on the same page man, absolutely, absolutely so, Um, what do you think is the cause of this? Because we know that it's it's gotten bad, like you talked about you ran from mayor in twenty seventeen. I believe, um, it wasn't as bad dan as it is now there clearly something has happened. What do you think is the cause of this? How do you think like our local our local administration of the mayoral administration, how do you think they've been responding to Do you think their response to this has been adequate or inadequate? What do you what do you think all that this violence is coming from? Yeah, I mean there's no silver bullet. I mean you know that's right, like poverty or in carceret, there's not one silver bullet's gonna say here's here's the cause of it. I think we have a fabric in our in our society now that is disposable more than ever before. I think, um, the I'm not in social media, but you know you can't not hear about the influence social media's having over over youths and even adults. Um. I think that's that's contributing to it. I think a large part is, um, this this idea of legalizing weed, and I i'm i'm, I'm I'm hard against this, this um abuse of smoking weed. I think it's suppressing people's energies and emotions to to to really rise up and say, hey, man, this isn't right. She gets hard smoke a joint and and that's not People should be getting angry right now. I mean, there should be a lot of anger out there that energy should be channeled to solving this or idea of the solutions. But the status like just get high, right, And I think that this this isn't grass that he's to smoke in the sixties, Man, this is this is isolated hybrid stuff that is engineering, and people aren't smoking in moderation oftentimes, you know, there's a difference between drinking and moderation or smoking weed and moderation. I'm talking about a constant um high. I think. I think that's that's that's that's that's allowing these these problems that we're having to increase. In my opinion, when you when you don't use it responsibly, I think you have, UM, I think parents, it's it's tough, man. We have three kids. And you know, if you don't think my wife and I have gone through ups and downs. I mean every every relationship has. I think it's just honest truth and um, a family unit is essential just to see you know, you having that that leadership from both you know, both mother and father in the household. I think what the police have gone through, some of it's been self inflicted, you know, mistakes have been made. Other times, you know, you got good cops paying the price for bad cops. And I think that you know, you know, he currently you've got you kind of staateety director calling the you know, people from West Park or the white cops racist and this, and then like it's being it's being condoned. I mean what I don't under it's just it's just so it's so fragmented, and I think the administration here is out of touch and they're not handling anything. I think council is rowing row in the same direction as the mayor. And and it's nice to have inflict when it's handled professionally. I think there should be people saying this isn't right, this isn't good enough, and O they're saying, you know, it's what everyone's like, Hey, it's okay. You know it's clear, and I know it's saying it's okay. I'm not trying to apply that, but there's a sense that's every child that dies or every adult that that gets shot, or I mean, hands should be flapping. I mean, we need to get on the ground to see what's going on and solve it. Solve it with ways in or conventional unconventional. But I've never believed in government to solve it, Darbio. I don't. I don't think they're gonna be the ones that come in with the political agendas and and you know machine ways of you know, parties, and it's just that that's not there. It's gotta be on us to solve it. But I think you've got so many damn things going on in society right now. And that's that's what we're seeing. And you know, you get you get incarcerated compound whatever I just said times twenty right, right, and um, and I think you're absolutely right. A lot of these solutions is going to come from us. Um. There is one thing that only they can do, and that is the issue with uh with the police. Um, we have a dramatic decline in police and we know that that's not that's not the only solution either, but it's part of the solution. We have a situation where the last police academy had only nine recruits. Here in Cleveland, We've had lost hundreds of officers over the last couple of years. Um, So do you think that that plays a role as well the fact that we are having an extremely hard time, particularly within the last two years, keeping officers that we have bringing in new officers. We're not doing a good job in recruiting, and it's just it's bad where at the Clevel Police Department, there's at a crisis level right now. Yeah, I mean, I would agree, And it sounds like you you've got the numbers a lot, a lot more down than I do. I didn't realize it's that low um book it. Man, it always comes down to leadership, right, you know you're there, you're throwing the same football on on the field. It's still one hundred yards and and and there's some locker rooms that aren't aren't clicking, there's some that are. Um, dude's it's it's leadership. It all boils down the leadership. And and there's a lack of that here Cleveland, Ohio. And it's it's it's it's on the it's in the safety force, it's in the police, it's it's it's a it's at city hall. Um. I don't again, I'm not on social media, man, I don't. I don't. I don't drink this this uh this this juice that says everything's okay. Um, let me spin it with some social media and some filters. And I'm just I'm just working on the ground. And I see more and more people volume victim to violence. I talked to more and more police officers and detectives who say, I got three years left and I'm out. Um, there's not a culture people want to be a part of it anymore. Man. I mean, it's just not it's not being run properly. And you you know you can't paign on this idea. You know, no one wants there. No one's a leader that's saying, hey, this is we're bad and and and you know we're we're wrong. There's some bad cops out there. Let's let's be honest, man. There's there's some bad things that have happened in our country with police, for sure, but that's not everyone. And and now you know, you know, here's a solution that it may be. You're right, it's not just gonna be the police. That's I think where we where we're really getting our ass kicked in the police department is like the sci unit, you know, when the case they have a case and they can't they can catch the bad guys. They don't have enough people, you know, scientific investigation units, so to get there before the case either gets the scene becomes corrupt, or the case goes cold. I mean, they don't have enough officers to investigate when they do find something gone wrong. And when you hear about that on the streets, you realize the likelihood of me getting the trouble is far or less than it was before. And then that's just like I mean, you know, I don't have to tell you it's yeah. Absolutely, you know what it is, man, I mean it is to me. I don't, I don't I know what we can do in our piece of the pie. If I was in government, I called this city of federal emergency and and and work with more federal dollars and an increase the amount of federal opportunities that we could we could apply for work closely. The governor who's who's just announced he wants to give more millions more to reentry. Um, you have mayors like in New York to say we want to take seventeen million away from re entry in Rikers Island. I mean there's you got, you got a governor who's champion second chances, You've got you know, federal dollars. I think that that someone craft enough can strain these things together to start to create an environment of of opportunity. Right absolutely, absolutely, and uh man, this is we man. We can talk forever on this. Um. Let everybody know, first of all, when when does your buyback begin? Has it started already? And then also if people want to get more information about you, about at wins and about everything else you've got going on, let him know, I mean that program starts immediately, and and it's been it's been too late. I mean, I don't Sometimes it takes another push to get things together, but it's it's immediate. Any of the restaurants, there's there's a you know, qualified and authorized person to handle the reception of this. We you know, we we lock it under safe lock and key. We call the Fort District and they take it from there. And it's anonymous too. Remember it's anonymous. If you want to learn information about what we do, I mean, come on it. Twenty twenty three website Edwin's Restaurant dot org. You know, we're nationwide on tablet, so you may not know someone here who's who's incarcerated, but in Arizona, UM, we can get you out here. Man, Like we fly people out here who complete our program on the tablet. That's courtesy the Cleveland Browns. You know, there's there's so much that we got going out were teaching juvenile corrections. We have our program here, We have ways of volunteer if you want to get involved or yeah, just check out the website. It's a lot, it's a lot, absolutely, man. Thank you so much for coming on the show, spending time with us and doing what you're doing. Brother, I really appreciate it. You're doing some great work out there. You're bet. Thank you. All right, one more time, shout out to Brandon Kristowski from that once for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. We are out of here for you next time. Peace. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where real talk lifts. Visit us online at FCB podcasts dot com.
