To the editor:

After an absence of several months, really almost a year, I was walking my dog down Mass. the other day and was amazed at how many businesses have left the area.

I was getting ready to leash my dog outside a store to do some shopping when I was informed by an official that I could not do so because of a city ordinance. I explained that I had seen a wanted/reward poster for a little white terrier which had been taken from a parked car, supposedly by some “kind-hearted” Lawrence animal lover, and I was anxious about leaving my dog in the car. I was told it wasn’t his concern and that I should take the dog away. I laughed and said that would be easy because I have been doing something like that for several months by shopping in Johnson County.

For instance:

• If you go to a farmers’ market in Johnson County at 7:15 a.m., you don’t return to your car at 8:05 a.m. to find a $30 ticket because your car is parked with one wheel halfway touching the parking line.

• I know of no library in the state of Kansas that charges its patrons to park, except Lawrence.

• How many municipalities make you pay parking to take parks and recreation classes? Or make their senior citizens pay for parking to quilt, weigh themselves or pick up free bread?

Telling patrons of a downtown district what they cannot do does not make them want to come back for more.