I'll have a large mushroom , olive...and file pizza to Go
Jail Operates Pizza Home Delivery Service
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian jails may have a grim
reputation for crammed cells, cruel treatment of prisoners and
bloody riots, but the Dutra Ladeira prison now is famous for
something else -- its pizza.
Little Tutu pizzeria and bakery, run in the central Minas
Gerais state by former drug runner and now convict Thenys Chagas
Pereira, sells pizzas to prisoners and guards and even delivers
to neighboring districts on the outskirts of state capital Belo
Horizonte.
"We all love this pizza, especially tomato and sausage," said
a secretary for the prison director, Col. Carlos Roberto de
Paula, who allowed the bakery on the prison grounds as part of a
social rehabilitation program.
The bakery is operated by seven people, among them convicted
drug traffickers, thieves and killers -- "a mixed bag", as
Pereira put it. Only one was a baker.
Pereira, 34, says he and two business partners will each
pocket $250 after the first month of the Little Tutu operation.
He said that on weekends the Little Tutu, named after his
daughter, delivers up to 140 pizzas.
"The idea was born when jail mates had difficulties with
ordering pizza to the jail on visiting days. You know, when the
women come to visit," Pereira, who is serving an eight-year jail
term, told Reuters by telephone from the prison.
"Prisoners loved it as it's so much better than the prison
food. Later prison officials started taking pizzas home and
people from homes nearby started ordering," he said, explaining
that a partner in freedom was handling the deliveries.
But Pereira's idea now is to arrange a way for prisoners to
venture out sometimes to deliver pizzas. |
