Letter: Center the key to Albany's future

Amore Clothing has been on State Street in Albany since 1967. As I look out my storefront, I can tell you that we are more and more alone in the retail existence of downtown Albany.

[Scubbers]

Nobody wants to live in downtown Albany; in fact, nobody wants to even visit downtown Albany after dark...at least nobody besides ghetto rats drunken college kids.

[DanaRatalio]

Hey, I visit Albany after dark! But, then, I'm a drunken slag who will pretty much bang anything with $3 in its pocket.

[SylvioAratis]

I've shit in nicer places than Albany.

[Nina]

People don't like being mugged.
People are afraid to walk the streets of Albany
at night by themselves.
People are afraid to visit the neighborhoods where they lived as kids.
Jaywalking all over Central Ave.
Business district bars....where is retail
thank you thou Lodges for being there.

[Shocker]

Walk up State Street after dark...you'll be asked for money by at least two grubby black dudes.

Then you'll have to listen to smart-assed black punks and that crap they call music. Then there are the welfare-mommas with one snot-nosed little welfare-recipient in tow, and another riding in a $200 stroller I helped pay for. Of course, the mother is smoking $10 a pack Newport Menthols and carrying an iPhone.

[Rillo]

The thing that pisses me off is the fact that politicians say "gee,there's not really anything we can do about EBT's being used for strip clubs and booze"...yet somehow the department of Tax and Finance can find an illegal $23 deduction on your tax return.

If I commit a crime and leave one drop of saliva behind, the state police have the technology to identify me out of every other person on earth, but oddly enough, they don't have the technology to keep rufus and Chantel from buying malt liquor and cigarettes with their EBT card.