I had a customer shit on me today saying that the reason I was out of cups and straws in for fountain drinks was because we give the cups out to people who buy malt liquor. He then stated that those people make his life hell. I understand he has a property he rents out down the road here. I'm not sure what kind of problems he has with people who drink malt liquor. The problem is not with our store selling the malt liquor. The problem is with salvation army being two blocks down the road housing a bunch of people who are homeless due to being criminals or alcoholics. They are certainly not the best of the human race but most of them are pretty harmless for the most part. They come in here and they buy their 211 Steel Reserve or Hurricane High Gravity or Four Loko fruit energy malt liquor crap and go drink it in the alleys or bushes. If they don't buy the product here they will buy it somewhere else. Countless times I have denied them sale and watched them walk up drunk as a skunk to the other store up the road and walk out with alcohol. You want to blame someone for the problem, certainly don't blame this store. I also have a problem with the drinking in public ticket law. I feel as though it causes people to be afraid and thus go to shady places to drink their beer. Is it really necessary to make it illegal to consume an otherwise legal substance? They then go to the alleyways and back yards and bushes and drink their drink and then leave the cans behind. Should they feel less intimidated one would believe they would be willing to take their trash with them. Currently they cannot risk doing that because they would be ticketed, even with an empty container, for drinking in public. Most of these people cannot afford to pay for the tickets anyway and the tickets end up causing more paperwork. I wonder how many of the drinking in public tickets just clog up the works of the system and slow down otherwise more necessary fines and work that should be done. Banning the substances would not work either. People just migrate to where they can get the beer they want or they drink more of a lesser content beer. It has been proven because places in Seattle and Tacoma have tried it.

So... Gentrification? It won't drive them all away. There will still be problems. You gonna complain to me about the state of bums in the neighborhood? GIVE ME A SOLUTION THEN!

What do YOU propose to do about it?