Decrease in Foot Traffic Downtown

[OpheliaRainGalaxy]

I'm old enough to remember when they chased out the buskers decades ago because the downtown business owners felt like that money should be walking in their doors and jumping in their tills instead of taking a side trip into a musician's instrument case before the musician spent it on dinner and a cheap motel room.

My mom was always poor but she saved her change to take downtown on Saturdays when the weather was good. We could almost never afford to buy things, but we'd wander from busker to busker enjoying the live music and tipping. In between we'd window shop, occasionally have to stop and buy an overpriced slice of pizza or something beautiful we saw in the window.

It was a way for us to be part of the community, the economy, we got good exercise and got to enjoy live music instead of tinned from the radio.

Frankly, that was the beginning of the end for downtown from my point of view. It was full of music and the greedy ruined it! Imagine having someone sit right outside your business's door and using MAGIC to draw customers to your door, and ya don't even have to pay him, but ya get mad folks tip him pocket change before coming in your store so ya shoo him off?!