Dance group aims to start conversations about abuse, page 4 Legalization of marijuana counterproductive, page 5 lsunow.com/daily
thedailyreveille
@lsureveille
Volume 121 · No. 11
thedailyreveille
FOOTAGE COURTESY OF AKASHA MARKET
THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2016
FEAR FACTOR
Shop owner robbed at gunpoint, leaves Tigerland business of more than 20 years
BY SARAH GAMARD @SarahGamard In the middle of Tigerland, a family-run Palestinian shop still warmly welcomes bar-goers with the smell of fried chicken, shawarmas, gyros and colorful aisles of Turkish coffee and stuffed grape leaves. Akasha Market owner Rania Ahmed called the shop, open since 1993, an integral part of University history. She said students party at the bars and eat at Akasha on weekends. But after being terrorized at gunpoint and robbed of roughly $5,000 the morning of Jan. 4, Ahmed, who has run the store for more than 20 years, is leasing the business to take an indefinite leave. “I want the people to know I left because I’m afraid,” she said. “I’m not a weak person, but I have kids to live for.” Ahmed, who was born and raised in Gaza, came to Baton Rouge at 20 years old. She has two college-aged children of her own who worked with her at the store,
University’s national standing at risk BY SAM KARLIN @samkarlin_TDR
leave with her. The lessee will run the store, not own it, for five years. If he does poorly, Ahmed said she will have to take her business back. She is also thinking about opening another restaurant, or similar market, somewhere near downtown Baton Rouge or the University, but definitely not in the same area as the original store. The lessee declined to be interviewed, except to say that everything about Akasha Market will stay the same. Recently resigned cook and cashier Abdoulaye Goita, a soft-spoken 27 yearold electrical engineering graduate student from West Africa, said things have changed since 2007 when he lived in Tigerland as a student and went to its bars, and he no longer feels safe. Goita said his friends have lived in the same Tigerland apartment for longer than he can remember, but now plan on moving to
Leaders fear the potential mid-year cuts to the University — disclosed by LSU President F. King Alexander at $65 million — will drag the school down the academic ladder to the cellar of national rankings. And the damage, from negative publicity surrounding the state funding fight, may already be done. Annual talks of devastating budget reductions could drive away future students and faculty, which keep the University competitive, elsewhere, administrators wrote in a Jan. 25 report. The report, detailing the consequences of a potential $65 million, or 32 percent, reduction in state support, warned that students might have to pay an extra $690 in fees this year, and additional “substantial increases” in following years to compensate for a necessary enrollment cap and loss of students and faculty. Associate Vice President of Budget and Planning Tommy Smith said this is the time of year the University recruits students and faculty, and budget cut talks are already making that harder “[If prospective faculty and students] saw the news from the last couple years, and see these potential future cuts, it makes it very difficult to not only recruit new students and faculty but it makes it difficult to retain top faculty and students also,” Smith said. While U.S. News and World Report’s national universities ranking put LSU at 129, and Forbes ranked it 191, Smith said he doesn’t think there is a legitimate ranking system out there. There are a myriad of indicators to base scores on, and “everybody has a different opinion,” he said. But the numbers don’t lie, and LSU receives less funding than its peer schools. Based on the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard,
see AKASHA, page 2
see STANDING, page 2
PHOTO BY HASKELL WHITTINGTON
but treats all of her patrons like family. Ahmed said many of her customers greet her with hugs and call her “mama.” “They’d keep coming to me if Walmart opened up [across the street],” she said. Ahmed said she does not like the thought of leaving behind her student customers because she feels “it is not safe for them.” Students frequenting Tigerland are often drunk and lose their valuables to pickpockets, she said. And from what people have told her, Ahmed said she expects the gunman to return and repeat the crime. According to a BRPD news release, Akasha Market was robbed again on Jan. 20 around 10:30 p.m. “I do not like it, but when you fear for your life … I cannot imagine if this happened to my daughter next time,” she said. Ahmed said the new lessee is solely business-oriented and wants nothing to do with Tigerland’s student culture or “the family,” as she puts it. She said he is nervous the store’s popularity will
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