A Letter of Thanks By Charles Devonshire VIII
If people want more foliage, plant more trees around the city on sidewalks and the roofs of buildings. Use space wisely! You know what? Come to think of it, you could to the same thing at 86th Street, where there’s a Petco, Best Buy, Staples, a Barnes & Noble and more, all just a few blocks from guess what? Central Park. That’s right. Let’s make this city easy to live in. It’s hard for people to carry all of their belongings with them. It makes it hard to shop. My granddaughter orders her food from the Internet because going to the grocery store is too burdensome for God’s sake!
My enthusiasm is getting the better of me. I must apologize for this digression. The idea of turning parks into parking lots is not why I’m using my valuable time to write you. That’s not why I’ve put my pen to the page.
I am writing to give you my sincere thanks, my greatest gratitude for championing the legislation that outlaws those horrible, solid metal rolling gates that locally-owned businesses pull down over their windows when they’ve closed for the night. I don’t know what the official name is for them. It’s not in my vocabulary. But I think you know what I’m talking about. It was just written about in The New York Times, so I’m sure you know about it. Kudos to you for helping to push this vote through. Nothing is more uninviting than a city protecting itself in such a medieval way. The gates are unsightly and offensive. They say to every passer-by, “This is a community with brutish criminals.” It reminds good (and bad) people of crime, of looting stores, of chaos. Not since the 1977 blackout have I seen anything like that type of behavior here. You know what that means don’t you? The gates aren’t really needed for security. So now let’s discuss what happens to those gates. They become the free public canvas for every Tom, Dick or Harry with a can of spray paint. Some say it’s art. I say it’s the signature of the depraved underworld. And the greatest crime of all? The metal gates deter shopping! They hide the goods for sale from the eyes of consumers! They deter the collection of sales tax that could be used to make this city beautiful.
I also understand that you and your associates included quite a loophole. Storeowners that want to have metal gates can—as long as the gates only cover up 30% of the window. I suppose this seemed like a good compromise at first thought. Storeowners can still protect themselves in their preferred manner. The shoppers get to window shop. The metal gate producers still get business. But I propose you think about a stronger approach. I mean, how powerful can the local storeowners and metal gate industry lobby be? While they know their rights for protection (even once-illegal immigrants know the Second Amendment) and they know how to fight for them, you don’t need to listen. It’s not in the city’s best interests. After all, even a metal gate that only covers 30 percent of a window is still uninviting.
There are more subtle ways to protect one’s real estate, you know. Door locks, security cameras and alarms all exist for this purpose. But if storeowners want something stronger, might I suggest requiring them to install some sort of electric force field over their glass windows? That would solve the problem wouldn’t it? I’ve seen something similar for dogs, an electric fence. Maybe it’s worth stopping by a Petco to find out how this could be redesigned for retailers. It would be invisible; it would decimate the metal gate industry (Thank God, in my humble opinion), and it would probably be expensive—prohibitively expensive for local storeowners. Which means…are you following me? It means they’d have to shut down permanently, leaving more real estate for Blue-Chip stores. If you build it, they will come. I know this would work. I’ve traveled to the great (once) British isle of Hong Kong and have seen consumerism at its greatest height. The territory is brimming with luxury goods for sale. For starters, did you know there are seven Hermes, a three-level Armani complex and nine Gucci stores? It could happen here too, if leaders like you make the right decisions.
Sincerely,
Charles Devonshire VIII
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