LOL. I hear you. But towns like this one have to also look at the macro trends. The town that I grew up in has seen its downtown change from something like 40 independent businesses to maybe 2 or 3. The rest are now chain outlets - I call it an “inside out mall”, because it’s the same stores, but without the roof in between them.
Now with Amazon cleaning up, and Walmart just one decent I.T. guy away from figuring out Amazon’s secret (i.e., people want more than just a single crappy picture and a one-sentence description before buying something), the need to leave one’s residence is quickly disappearing...and even inside-out malls have their days numbered.
As to these ‘quaint’ towns, they are the biggest throwback to the past that we have, and if they want to stay in business they will need to offer something more. In this case, sending a message to Red Hen by coming out FORCIBLY against what they did could easily result in the Chick-a-Fil and now In-And-Out results, where we simply overwhelm the Left.
...but ‘playing it safe’ after what happened at Red Hen, sorry store owners, you only have yourselves to blame as your retirements dry up and you live out your elder years in poverty. It is ALWAYS the result when our side decides to ‘play it safe’ against the Left. Always.
When I was a kid, our downtown area had two druggists, a very good stationary store that also sold magazines, a candy store, two jewelers, two clothing stores, two upscale home good stores, an ice cream parlor and one very bad bookstore. Bookstore aside, it did cater to people’s real needs. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what it would take for many downtowns to become successful! I use the malls, myself, because I can get a parking spot.
“.but ‘playing it safe’ after what happened at Red Hen”
probably the biggest problem with these kinds of small, dying downtown boutique stores is that the business people who start them up and run them have extremely limited imaginations, poor to non-existent business skills, and probably don’t even realize that they’re “playing it safe” ... the successful small business people i work with are never on “main” street, but are always somewhere nearby where the rent and parking are much better ... they are also usually in some kind of business that isn’t a duplication of something that everyone else is doing and is often in a unique niche ...