Dear Editor
This is in response to "Pawn shops not the problem'' (Regional Optimist, July 13). I have lived in Ontario and been to many places, like Toronto, London, Ottawa and Vancouver, B.C. just to name a few here in Canada,where I can say that when you have vagrancy, pawn shops and empty store fronts you're usually in the wrong side of town or the bad end that no one wants to really go to. When I moved here, one year ago my work mates told me to stay away from that end of town because of the "problems" in that end of town. So, if I am new to this area and I am told right away to stay away from the downtown, what does that tell you?
I think if the banks and the two or three shops that are located downtown could move out, then it wouldn't matter any more because all the working class people would not have any reason to go downtown. Living here for such a short time, I do not see any pawn shops in Battleford, nor do I see any drunks panhandling or loitering under the canopies that are attached to the store fronts there.
Walking downtown last year, I was approached by what the letter writer calls a social problem and this fellow had with him a tool kit that you would find in someone's tool box. It was a leather bag with wrenches in it. He asked me if I wanted to buy this item. I told him the best I could, to get lost. I then saw him walk into one of the many fine pawn shops in our outstanding downtown area. It might not have been the letter writer's pawn shop. It could have been one of the other three or four that are in that area.
The business I used to work for was broken into and had many tools stolen, among which were four or five grinders, that were subsequently found in one of the downtown pawnshops.
So, from what I have seen of the downtown area, pawn shops are not the only problem, but combined with vagrancy, empty store fronts and loitering, they make a perfect recipe for the social problem to grow and multiply.
John Baker
