Our little town is at a crossroads.

Going back is not an option. Heavy industry has left us in the dust. Nothing but a much smaller number of smaller plants remain, leaving broken buildings, broken promises, and broken hearts in their wake.

To quote the Boss, “These jobs are going, boys, and they’re not coming back to your hometown. The road ahead seems dark, strewn with potholes, broken windows, boarded up buildings…”

One path available provides some promise but not without risk. It offers a chance to fill some of those storefronts and factories  and generate desperately needed revenue, not only sales and other taxes but traffic to other businesses around them.

It will lift all boats, as it were. The risk, besides that of any new market setup, is overcoming a cultural bias against its product. That may be the bigger hurdle — one I have personally struggled with the last few weeks. 

Talks on whether to use the 100-year-old post office building as a medical marijuana dispensary has added fuel the to fire in local debates.

After much consideration, from all angles, I conclude that we must take this new road, this bold step. As a compromise, I suggest setting a term on the licenses, for maybe two or three years. Then, the city should review the results and go from there.

There is actually a local precedent, back in the 1960s or 1970s, when the drinking age was lowered. Growing up outside of Edwardsburg in the 1970s, I could see how much traffic that brought into the area — and the aftermath.

Nearly 40 years since the return of the drinking age to 21, only two of the half-dozen-plus establishments that were located in and around the town still exist under the same name. The place I got my first legal drink, Motts Apple Corps, is gone,  too.

Niles still had Tyler,  Simplicity, etc.

Now, the risk is greater and the stakes are higher (pun intended).

So I say let’s try it. Let’s get ahead if the curve.

Besides, it’ll give new meaning to the term “going postal.”

David Hough

Niles