Friday, June 04, 2004

Going outta business

Two businesses along R St have closed their doors. I don't know if anyone really close is sad.

First was Jorge's Body Shop. There used to be cars and trucks littering the corner and sometimes they'd spill out on to the parking spaces on the street. I know the shop had some cars up for sale. So I am guessing one or two things happened that spelled the demise of the shop. First the city cracked down on dealers and temp auto tags. As I understand it, a lot of businessmen made good money off of selling temp tags but not cars. Secondly, the property values in the area have been getting high and I don't know if business was keeping up with that.

Second place was Majestic (?) Cleaners on the same block. Now first off I'll tell you what was wrong with that cleaners and why I would never use them, no posted hours. I walked by many a time and never once saw their hours of business. Also they were just opening as I was heading to work and were closed when I came back from work and I didn't see them open on Saturday. Obviously they weren't out for the 9-5 working person's business. One of my neighbors made the mistake of doing business with them, and needed his clothes back for a special event. Well they were closed when he went there and had no idea when they'd open again. Another problem was that there was little from the outside that gave you the impression they were for the general public. In addition to the lack of useful business hours there was no visible register or anything that hinted at business other than for commercial bodies.

You could say both businesses have been pushed out due to gentrification. Well you could say George Bush is a giant Cicada. You could say a lot of things really. But I hope those businesses are replaced by places that service the community and post business hours.

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