Longtime Atlanta airport shoeshine operation Master Shine has been selected for a contract to continue buffing shoes at Hartsfield-Jackson International, while a small local shoeshine firm was also selected to launch operations there.
Master Shine and Final Touch Shoes were each selected. A larger firm from Las Vegas with national aspirations, Goodfellows Shoeshine, was disqualified from the running due to an issue with documents submitted.
It’s the first time in 17 years that the Atlanta airport has contracted out the shoeshine stands. The plan is to more than double the number of shoeshine stands, and to split them between two contractors. The contract decisions are subject to approval by the Atlanta City Council and mayor’s office.
Winning the contract to continue the shoeshine business at the airport “will mean a lot,” said Charles Sanders, a shoeshiner and co-owner of Master Shine. “It will mean my life is saved,” and his fellow shoeshiners “got a place to make some money for their kids and family too.”
Sanders, 77, had worried about how to pay for a consultant to prepare the extensive proposal documents to compete for the contract.
A Decatur resident, La Detra White, earlier this year launched an online campaign to raise donations to help Master Shine and Charles Sanders prepare proposals.
White said it was about “leveling the playing field and giving him an opportunity to do something he’s always done.” She assembled a team including an accountant and an attorney who helped to prepare the proposal for Master Shine and construct a plan to modernize the operation.
Getting the contract means Master Shine, which Sanders co-owns with four other shoeshiners, will need to undergo an array of upgrades for the new contract — including adding the ability to accept credit cards, upgraded shoeshine chairs and a “rebranding.”
“They wanted everything upgraded,” said Sanders. Master Shine won a contract for shoeshine stands in the domestic terminal and on Concourses T, A, C and F. He said he expects the Master Shine price for shoeshines — currently $7 for shoes and $8 for boots — may go up $1 or $2 as a result.
Final Touch Shoes president Anthony Hines, who won a contract for shoeshine stands in the domestic terminal and Concourses B, D and E, said the deal will allow him to expand his business, which has shoeshine stands in locations elsewhere in Atlanta.
Goodfellows CEO Shelley Bonner-Carson, who has built up a shoeshine business from a small operation at Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas into a large operation with locations at multiple airports, said she was informed her proposal was deemed “non-responsive” due to an incomplete E-Verify form, which is required by the state.
Bonner-Carson said the company was in compliance but the proposal was submitted before the company was issued a number to enter in the document. The form requires a federal work authorization user identification number and date of authorization.
“I’ll just pick up my marbles and play on the West Coast,” she said.
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