The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner."Over the past two years, the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically. Many Central

The author of this letter recommends for the prohibition of skateboarding in order to boost business for shop owners at Central Plaza. While it is not unlikely that skateboarding is responsible for the decline in business activities, this recommendation needs proper scrutiny before it can be accepted and implemented. A couple of questions need to be answered and other points raised substantiated to support the claims and recommendations made by the writer.

The writer assumes that the number of shoppers at Central Plaza has decreased over the past two years but failed to tell us what the number was two years ago and now. He also needs to establish the means and mode of measurement used to arrive at this number. This will help to establish the assumption that the number of shoppers have declined. It will also be important to check if the number of shops at the Plaza have increased, in which case, the shops will have to share the customer base and would assume naturally that the number of shoppers have decreased since they will be seeing less customers.

Additionally, the author claims that the reduction in number of shoppers is as a result of increased skateboarding activities within the Plaza. The question is, how do we truly assert from this article that the skateboarding activities actually increased over the last two years? A further insight into the skateboarding activities over the two-year period would have corroborated this claim.

Furthermore, the writer assumes that the increased skateboarding activities is responsible for the dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism within the plaza but failed to tell us the extent of vandalism and amount of litter witnessed by the plaza two years ago. If there is no quantification of these events two years ago and now, ultimately, it will be difficult to establish that these events have actually increased. Even if the events have increased, how is it linked to skateboarding within the Plaza?

Except, the writer establishes the fact that some of these vandals and the people who drop the litters have been caught and identified to be among the skateboarders, then the claim is flawed.

Finally, the management of Central Plaza should evaluate this article carefully and carry out a number of investigations before thinking of implementing the recommendation made. The remaining shoppers at Central Plaza might be the skateboarders, in which case, banning them from the sport may move them to another environment and ultimately, reduce the level of business in the plaza. More so, if there is no database or list of shoppers at central plaza in the past two years, it would be difficult to establish that the number has actually reduced. If there is, however, the Central Plaza management should try to administer questionaires to these people to find out where they shop now and why they have chosen to shop there. This will effectively help to determine the extent to which the recommendations and assumptions in this article can be accepted and implemented.