Legalize Cats!

Over the years we’ve heard a few news stories and the occasional television segment that make it clear that people in Japan are much fonder of cats than you might expect if all you know about that country is business-related. Last year we had the tale of the cat who became stationmaster of an otherwise automated train station, and this year we have the story about neko cafes (cat cafes) which seem to be catching on in Tokyo – unless the CNN Travel site is being hoodwinked by fake news generated to see just how gullible we Westerners really are again…

If the story is true, however, it would appear that people in Japan are shelling out the equivalent of about $12 USD per hour for an otherwise typical coffee house experience – which is to say, a clean, well-lighted place where one can sit, read, write, blog, converse with friends, consume food and drink, and have other forms of social interaction. The difference in this case being that the neko café also supplies cats – ordinary house cats, according to the pictures – which will lounge around with you while you do this. The concept certainly isn’t that strange – we’ve all encountered bookstores with a store cat, and I’ve seen several other businesses with a resident feline or two – but the idea of just socializing with cats present (and paying for the opportunity) may seem a little odd to our Western sensibilities. On the other hand, if you live in a densely-populated city where it is difficult to get permission to keep a cat of your own in an apartment, perhaps this idea makes sense – especially if the domestic cat has a special place in your culture…

I’m not sure this business model would work in this country; Americans aren’t good about paying for space to park themselves in the first place, and having cats in a food service establishment could cause problems with various health agencies. If you could get around the regulatory issues, and the obvious health and safety issues, I can’t help thinking it would be fun, though. You’d need enough staff people to make sure that none of your customers were harassing the cats – or being harassed by the cats – in the course of their visit, and you’d have to find some way of dealing with the feeding, dander, and sanitary issues associated with cats, but a lot of people would probably like the idea of having a friendly cat join them for a drink. Alternately, I suppose, you could try the same concept with other types of animal, if you (or your customers) aren’t cat fanciers…

To get a good mixture of animals, and keep them supplied with medical care and proper grooming, one possible option might be a joint venture with a pet store. Or perhaps you could consider working with a local shelter or rescue organization; they’d supply the animals and someone to look after them during operating hours, and in return they’d have a regular supply of people who might want a pet, or want to contribute to a rescue organization or shelter. If you or they had a problem doing this sort of thing every day you could have “cat days” or “dog days” or dedicated adopt-an-animal days; if you can work out the aforementioned health agency problems you could even allow people to bring their own animals in with them…

Now, the truth is, I don’t know if any of this would work, or if it would all just be a big, hairy (literally!) mess. What I do know is that with the proliferation of coffee houses, if you want to open a new one in your community, you’re going to need something that will cut through the clutter and distinguish your operation from all of the others – and resident cats might do that. The same goes for any other overcrowded business segment. I’m not saying that cats would get you noticed, let alone bring in an extra $12 per hour per customer; I’m just saying that if you don’t find some way of making your business stand out from the competition, you’re going to have much larger problems than someone who doesn’t especially like cats finding a hairball in their shoe…