Another week and another attack on another symptom of grinding poverty Baltimore style. Last week, the city was banning candy-flavored cigars, now it's denying liquor store owners loans after the city did nothing to protect their legal tax-paying businesses during the riot ("City shouldn't support non-conforming liquor stores," June 16).
In certain areas of Baltimore, liquor stores are the only businesses. The Sun cites a Johns Hopkins study that blames "the overconcentration of liquor stores in poor communities" that "represent a serious public health risk because of its association with higher rates of serious chronic illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes and shortened life expectancy." The study is attempting to use correlation to prove causation, a logical fallacy. Small liquor stores aren't causing public health risks, poverty is.
It's magical thinking to believe that "Converting the nonconforming liquor stores into shops selling the ingredients for healthy, nutritious meals would fill a real need in such communities." Are Fresh Fields and Trader Joe's being kept out of the West Side, East Side and Cherry Hill because they can't find suitable commercial property to rent due to all the liquor stores? And if grocery stores were to replace liquor stores, what money will the poor use to purchase perishable fruits and produce instead of much-cheaper salted carbohydrate snacks and fast food?
Christopher I. Moylan, Baltimore