Anchorage has become an unfriendly atmosphere. User-friendly isn’t even a concept anymore. Attempts to eradicate the homeless have choked retail for the rest of us.
Many doors are now literally closed except in a fire. One store has a cop checking your receipt with a loaded weapon. Costco now treats its members as suspects first, then as members.
To use the bathroom in one retail store, you have to find the employee with the key. There are no longer tables to sit at and eat the food you purchased from the deli. The stairs by the Chester Creek Trail near Valley of the Moon are closed off to the public. It is getting ridiculous. The rec center now changes the code to their bathroom, of a community center, to once a week.
It’s these gestures that build goodwill that are being eroded from the fabric of a wholesome community. As we let these incongruent with user-friendly policies continue to expand, we are letting a creation of inhospitality flourish.
— Steiven Douglas, Anchorage
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