PEOPLE WILL TREAT YOU THE WAY THAT YOU TREAT THEM

Dear Editor: The Hope Standard

Given that shoplifting in Canada is a $10 billion annual problem, one
wonders why the nine businesses along Wallace between Fourth and Fifth
Avenues have been singled out by this publication. It is frustrating for a
business owner on this block, who goes out of her way to bring positive
energy and a healthy business environment to the area, to read
sensationalist drivel about urinating street people and rampant drug use.

Let's see if we can set aside the diatribe long enough to see what's really
going on in this half of Hope. First we have Hope Community Services and
Thrift shop. Not everyone is lucky enough to have jobs and homes in these
frigid political and economic times, but I don't think these people are
urinating in the street on a daily basis, they need help and thankfully
this organization is there to provide it. Further west you find a dollar
store and a consignment clothing store, where young families buy clothes
and pencil crayons for their kids, the proprietors are friendly and the
goods sold at very reasonable prices.

Yet further and you find a computer store where the door is always open and
even the most technologically illiterate can learn to use a computer and
perhaps better themselves on the Internet. What about the toy store filled
with birthday presents and the pet food store with the friendly cat and
reasonable prices on quality feed for all animals? And of course the
incense and gift shop who invited the art community to paint a wonderful
mural for the whole town to enjoy.

The truth about running a business is that people treat you the way you
treat them. If you jack up your prices and try to gouge for every penny,
then your patrons are going to behave accordingly. If you sell
paraphernalia that encourages the use of drugs, it seems that you would
expect to attract drug users and thieves to your business.

The Vancouver east side is a very complicated and dangerous area. No
reasonable comparison could possibly be drawn to this or any other area in
the town of Hope. There are no bars on our windows, we don't have guns
behind the counters and contrary to the irresponsible reporting of this
publication, there is not a greater problem with petty crime then there is
in the rest of Hope, or Canada for that matter.

There are only nine businesses along in the area in question, in the
future; it would be appreciated if the Hope Standard could be bothered to
ask the opinions of more than one or two of them before painting the entire
block with such a dark and erroneous brush.

Scents-erely Anna Gladue Anna's Incense Hope, BC