Word On Street: ​“Smell Good In Your Hood”

Two decades into running one of downtown’s longer-running commercial enterprises, LeaMOND Suggs was hooking up an old friend with a new olfactory sensation.

Suggs, 64, owns ​“Impressive Fragrances,” a vending business that has served as his way of making a living for 22 years on Chapel Street. 

On the sidewalk between Church and Orange Wednesday morning, Suggs bottled up some fragrances for his close friend, Scott Turner, including a Burberry oil, which Turner tried for the first time. Meanwhile, Suggs talked about running his business for the past two decades on the ​“Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s​“LoveBabz LoveTalk” program.

Suggs vends on Chapel Street six days a week with the goal of helping people to ​“smell good in your hood.” 

One of Suggs’ favorite items is a Jean Paul Gaultier oil fragrance. He picks up his selection of oils from New York. 

“If you can’t find it in New York, you can’t find it period,” he said.

In addition to oils, he sells incense, sunglasses, face masks, and soaps. He recently introduced cellphone and car chargers. 

Prices range from $3 to $35 for an entire oil bottle. ​“I try to accommodate all pocket sizes,” he said. 

Suggs said he has learned to weed out the timeless scents from the trendy ones. 

He started off offering 16 different oil fragrances and a few soaps. He has since increased his selection to several dozen bottles to make up his selection.

Meanwhile, from his ground-level perch, he has watched New Haven reinvent itself in good and bad ways, he said. 

“All the apartments that they’re building is excellent. But the prices are too high,” he said: The new apartments are not affordable for the average working New Havener like himself. 

In the past Suggs would travel to different areas of the city like The Boulevard Flea Market and vend on Chapel Street only on the weekends. 

Now he sets up his cart on Chapel between Church and Orange Streets Mondays through Saturdays from 8 a.m to 5 p.m.

The income has helped him to raise his two sons, now ages 18 and 7. 

Suggs got started in the business by helping out two of his vendor friends who used to sell on Chapel Street and the New Haven Green. He would relieve the owners several times throughout the day to allow them to leave and perform their daily Salah. 

“In the process of doing that, giving them a break, they would tell me the prices, and I would make a couple sales,” he said. ​“It planted a seed.” 

At the time Suggs was working in overnight transportation. Once he worked to save up $300, he invested in his own vending business. 

At first he set up his stand using a foldable table. That made it hard to work in inclement weather.

“Wind was blowing my glasses down the street,” he said. 

So Suggs designed a mobile vending cart for his products. He had a metal cart specially made that allows him to close its door and lock away his fragrances during breaks. A built-in awning shades him from the rain and heat. 

“Rain used to stop me from coming out,” he said. ​“Now I bring my own shade.” 

Suggs said his clientele includes adults who have been buying from him for years as well as their kids and grandkids, who have gotten to know him while growing up. ​“I’m getting generational money,” he said.

The top-selling items are the oils. He occasionally sells jewelry and chargers at the request of frequent customers. 

Most customers rely on Suggs to provide affordable designer fragrances like Versace and Gucci, he said. His most consist fragrances to sell out are Egyptian Musk and Opium. 

Turner and Suggs were reacquainted when Turner became a regular oil customer. They previously knew each other as youth living on Dewitt Street but didn’t recognize each other until several oil transactions. 

“He got that big ​‘ol forehead. I remember him,” Suggs joked. 

When Suggs started vending the local regulatory process required him only to obtain a vending permit. That changed over the years: He was required to get liability insurance and a site license from the city to set up his business in an approved area of Downtown. Now, instead of paying just $200 a year for his vending license, Suggs pays an additional $1,000 a year for a site license that guarantees him his spot on Chapel Street. He said he prefers the change because it limits the competition on his corner. 

“I could leave and go on vacation for a month; my spot will be here for me,” he said. ​“Before, if you disappeared for a day, somebody was gonna try to come here, because I made the spot hot.” 

During his Wednesday work regular customers and friends passed by and picked up their doses of incense and fragrances. 

“My mom says hi,” remarked one passing customer. 

Another came to Suggs with a $5 bill. ​“What can I get for this?” he asked.

“Anything,” Suggs responded. ​“How about some incense?”

Nora Grace-Flood’s reporting is supported in part by a grant from Report for America.