Letter to the Editor
Thanks for nothing
Published Sunday, March 30, 2008
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Stumble It!March 26, 2008
To the editor:
Thank you, News-Clueless. I can not buy groceries within a mile of my house in South Fairbanks and you support the City Council turning down a liquor license and killing the grocery store.
But you print this great article (Food Page, March 26) about eating the weeds in my yard.
Thanks for the help.
Community Discussion
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As I have stated often before, liquor licenses only increase corruption and crime. Just increase the liquor taxes.
Groceries are bad for alcoholics. If they eat food, they can drink more. Sorry, citizen. Enjoy those weeds. It's for the greater good.
On a normal walk, one can walk a MILE in 15 minutes.
Walking is good for you !
We already have one of the highest state taxes in the nation. Taxes seem to be the cure-all solution to social problems. Let's introduce a gun and ammunition tax next to make the streets safer.
It's good to see that are government leaders are the moral compass for us to follow and it must be their job to legislate morality for rest of us to follow.
Oh wait, how many of them are in jail.....
We need government to defend the nation, provide for education and to tell us where we can open a grocery store.
Dont worry everyone. Obama is coming to save you.....
No Bush, the Republican majority in both House and Senate already did that for us. Hows that working out for ya? Funny stuff! YouMustBConfused
Try fermenting the weeds. Or better yet, stry smoking them.
I don't have a grocery store within a mile of my house either, or 2 miles, or 3 miles. If everyone expects that level of convenience, we would have hundreds of grocery stores within Fairbanks.
If there's that much demand for a grocery store in that area, why does it absolutely need a liquor license to survive?
Somehow I'm doubting this is about groceries.
Lets see,
If a polar bear will walk two hundred fifty miles for lynks meat I think that all those that live in that area of town can walk a few miles for there food too.
AK HUSKY I live in north pole. So your perspective makes a lot of sense to me.
average joe and akhusky- When i bought my home downtown one of the selling points was that schools, hospitals and GROCERY STORES where within walking distance, I bought and paid more for my home and pay property taxes for all the conveniences of downtown living. If you chose to move to North Pole or out into the rural fairbanks area then you made that decision to be away from the conveinences of living in town. It is one thing to walk somewhere for your health (by choice) as echo pointed out, but it is entirely different when you HAVE TO just to get the things that you want. you assume people walk by choice and not necessity, you are assuming more than you should because not everyone lives by middle class standards and you show no understanding of people that are not that priviledged.
JB Wipe off the tears and move to californy
MANY MANY OTHER ISSUES TO BE WORRYING ABOUT! THE PEOPLE IN THIS TOWN NEED TO WAKE UP AND STOP TELLING PEOPLE TO MOVE TO CALI!
True that, ABP! I say it over and over: Don't ask someone to leave Alaska because they don't agree with you.
anti babolon move to cali
imusually move to cali
Even if a store were within a mile, would you really walk to it? If so, good for you! There is a bus route near you in South Fairbanks, take the bus and save the air quality!!! We do not need any more liquor stores, there are way too many and alcohol is too available for the youth/alcoholics in our community. Period!! Groceries, no problem ... alcohol ... BIG problem!
Nice, underage-smo. I bet you were not born here. Probably less than 10 years judging from you comments. Hopefully that is not your age.
Liquor stores do not CAUSE alcoholism or it's associated problems. A concentration of liquor stores in a neighborhood could be seen as a SYMPTOM of social problems.
So, yeah, News-Miner and city officials, treating a disease by attacking possible symptoms...as the Guiness beer ads say, "Brilliant!"
Totaly confused-born and raised no punk
average joe if it looks like crap and smells like crap...
Good, now please stop dumbing down this great state with you punkless attitude.
BJ your better than other people? We should build a grocery store just for poor you.WAH-keep crying
Yeah it is just for me, right. Joe I like an intelligent conversation, talking with you would be like the fith grade all over. There are lots of folks that have spoke up about a store downtown, not just me. And I also guarantee that I am no better than anyone else, but that also means that you are not better than me either so get off your soapbox and realize that this is a place for people with different opinions to have an open dialogue, not just the WAAAh comments, please.
An Alaskan Troll! Now that is funny!! YouMustBConfused
You guys are so sensitive. I need to get outside,dont get hemmys sitting here all day.later
I try not to ever tell anyone to "leave, or move" but it does strike me as odd that for all these years, Fairbanks was a wild, rough, frontier town. All of a sudden in the last 15 or 20 years, it has turned into what many that are here now would like to see as a small city from down south. Why did those people choose to move here in the first place?? This town was just fine, had money (and I know some will say revenue sharing) and never had a problem with too few law enforcement. We had three streets smack in the middle of town full of little bars. We had some public inebriates, they NEVER caused a problem. Now, we have ALL these people raising holy cane about the drunks, and drinking. It was NEVER a problem before. I have to think maybe it is the "new breed" of Fairbanksans, not the society.
this city is known for its drunks. Alaska is the leading nation for drunk driving.... and all Fairbanks has to do in the winter is drink.. that is why when you drive at night, you will see at least 5 officers doing a sobriety test on someone at some block on the corner.. yeah.. that is what we need, more liquor stores. This guy is wasting our time. Go walk and get your booze and groceries!
I love living in this area (I love living OUTSIDE of town!) for numerous reasons, and thankfully all of those reasons keep me here despite many things about the city itself. One of a few things I'd like to change about the city would be to have more smaller, locally owned grocery stores. I absolutely refuse to ever shop at WalMart, and I wish there were alternatives to Fred Meyer and Safeway. By comparison, Homer, an area of about 8,000 people, has at least 2 full grocery stores that are locally owned and compete very well with Safeway. Many people in Homer take advantage of the variety--some items are far less expensive at the smaller stores, and other items are less at Safeway.
I don't like government getting into matters of who builds what where. I think an acceptable threshold for government zoning regulation should be more in line with the US Constitution--do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else's rights. Applying this idea to the matter of a grocery/liquor store on South Cushman, the city should realize that the liquor store doesn't cause alcoholism or associated problems (people with this disease are going to get help or get drunk regardless of how many choices in liquor sales they have).
Let the free market decide how many liquor stores are needed.
Address alcoholism and social problems directly, in ways that can actually help.
i don't think that this town is known for its drunks... i'm sorry that you think that. your all definitely entitled to your own opinion but i don't see any of these comments as constructive criticism. thats what i was reading for...
I have to drive 30 miles to get to a grocery story.....
JB - grrrrrrrr won't let it happen again. Didn't mean to step on your toes......I was assuming that a person could do two things in one trip to the store, walking and picking up a few store items. I know what it is like to HAVE TO walk to get to someplace. Been there done that.
We used to have some local stores. The Hub and Lindy's come to mind. But they're long gone. We used to have a fun, vibrant nightlife downtown. But it's long gone. Californication.
But still, I love it up here. Always have, always will.
As to the point of the debate, I think the government ought to stay the hell out of it. If a guy wants to build a store, and can do it, well more power to em. If they sell to an inebriate who kills somebody, then they should have to answer for it.
Yeah I remember the DETOUR CLUB man that was the BOMB
bikebuilder, While the Detour was a pretty good joint, it had been a thriving bar prior to being that. It was the Sunset Inn prior to being the Detour. I think glacieries was referring to the bars downtown on 1st, 2nd and 3rd that got torn down in the early 80s. When they were still in business, downtown was vibrant. CoOp drug was fantastic, and you could go from one bar to the other without even going outside in many of them. They were open till 5 in the morning, and reopened at 8 in the morning. There was NO MONEY PROBLEM in the city, and there were not even the alcohol problems that there are today. Sure, there were drunks downtown, but now they have dispersed and are driving/walking drunk and it is more problem today than it was then.
Yukonjohn
I think the sunset was off old rich by the athletic club, The detour was where the matress place is now, across from the new freddies.
However, I wasnt here when the bars were on 1st, 2nd, 3rd street. I have heard how much more fun this town was when there was a core drinking area so the need to drive drunk was reduced with the ability to walk to all the bars and keep everyone in one central drinking location...
I should look at the statistics of bars located in core areas and the drunk driving problems they have v the type of area bars we have and our drunk driving problems.
I'm thinking if you had a core drinking location and a central location to catch a cab it would reduce the DUI's in our town.