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 letter is addressing a matter of a decrease in the number of people shopping at the Central Plaza. It is assumed that this decrease is due to the popularity of skateboarding. The author recommends that if skateboarding in the central Plaza is prohibited this will return the business to its high levels. However for the author to come to such a conclusion solid evidence is required to back up the recommendation.

For, such the recommendation to be considered a lot of question have to be answered. Firstly, an investigation has to be done to determine whether skateboarding is causing a decrease in the number of people shopping in the Central Plaza. There could be other reasons why people are no longer shopping in that place. It could be that their prices are much higher compared to other shops. Another factor that could have contributed is maybe the time which it took for them to note the decline in the number of people shopping at Central Plaza. It could be that many new malls have been opened over time and so there is competition. So some people have resorted to shopping in those new malls and thus it has caused a decline in their customers.

Secondly, a question of whether the increase in litter and vandalism is it due to the popularity in skateboarding or there are other reasons behind this increase. How are these skateboarders increasing litter and how are they vandalizing the property? Does skateboarding release any litter? These questions have to be answered in order to evaluate whether skateboarding has contributed in the increase of litter and also vandalism. Normally you would expect that the litter will decrease when there are a few people shopping in that area.

There could be other sources of litter and vandalism. For example maybe they have not been monitoring the company that has been contracted to clean the place and hence this has lead to the place being littered. It could be a question that maybe there have to increase the number of bins in the place and locate them in places where there are easily spotted. Vandalism could be due to the fact that the Central Plaza has relaxed on security issues. Maybe there is need for them to look into their securities systems and not only to assume that vandalism is coming from skateboarders. Giving evidence on whether there were people who were reported to have vandalized their properties could help in determining the group which is responsible for these vandalism.

For the recommendation to be adopted, further research has to be done, comparing other shopping centers which are busy that Central Plaza, see how their litter and vandalism levels compare. This will help in making a decision based on concrete evidence and not according to assumptions.