I just came from reading the Chattanoogan article about the efforts to shut down RIA's Market on Broad Street by blaming it attracts alleged loiters and drunks. When they pile on they do it in groups and numbers don't they? That way the complaints appear more plausible, right?
I've been to the store a few times, and I've not seen much if any what others have described.
Sure, there were sometimes a few panhandlers from time to time. But for the most part, no one approached me. Although, I sometimes approached them and offered a couple of bucks from time to time. However, I'm just wondering if there's any difference between wealthy drunks stumbling out in traffic, vomiting all over the place, or peeing in alleys or storefronts versus poor ones, since that seems the major complaints for going after the store.
A former neighbor use to work at one of the upscale restaurants downtown. Most days he rode the bus to and from work. However, sometimes his work hours lasted well into the wee hours of the morning when city buses had stopped running. On those nights where his work hours lasted well after midnight and sometimes it was past 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. in the mornings when I ran downtown to pick him up. Sometimes it was like a driver's obstacle course trying to drive around obviously well-to-do drunks stumbling out into the middle of traffic while their equally drunk friends were trying to pull them away from traffic. Talk about a young woman passed out on one of those brick benches with all her glory showing for the world to see. I'd be seeing some of the well-dressed peeing in an alley or doorway (but when ya' gotta go you gotta go, right?) or vomiting on the sidewalks (lose your appetite on that one), or even inside some of the upscale restaurants for that matter (just ask some of the staff who has to clean it up).
If you don't want the store there anymore just be honest. It has nothing to do with drunks, passed out drunks, peeing or vomiting. Cause the rich, middle-classed, and well-to-do are doing it downtown too. They just dress nicer.
Brenda Washington