Dear editor:
In the Wed., Dec. 16, issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch there was an article talking about Ralston Purina expecting an earnings increase. The Article stated: “The architecture of the restaurants has been improved as a result of criticism of one planned at Skinker and Delmar Boulevards here and elsewhere. Dean said the company took a “shellacking” in the controversy over the proposed Jack-in-the-Box restaurant at Skinker and Delmar. Volume of each of the 25 units in the St. Louis area dropped $1000 a week at the height of the well publicized fight, he said.
How about a brief item in the next issue of THE Paper on Dean’s statement, pointing out that it doesn’t pay for a company to mess with Skinker-DeBaliviere.
Don Ostrom 6182 Waterman
Editors note
The property in question has been bought, we understand, by Southwestern Bell for a parking lot.
We have had reservations about “well publicized” fights to keep businesses out of our area, when the business situation is so unstable. In the Jack-in-the-Box fight everyone talked about the unsightliness of the buildings, etc., when the present building is in such a state of disrepair that it was a fire hazard and no new businesses would relocate in it. We question the wisdom of a community trying to determine what businesses come in and what do not when the overriding need is to attract new businesses. Frankly it scares away businessmen who fear that they will only buy a property to find that the community residents oppose their business. And right at the moment we desperately need these businesses. It’s not that the community should not have a say in the character of the business community; it’s just that we should be careful in what new businesses we oppose lest we discourage others at a time when we need them badly.
It seems that our alternates in the Jack-in-the-Box was a building in disrepair or a parking lot.
Originally published in The Paper, February 1971.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1971_02.pdf, printed page 2, 10.
