Editor,    

I'll get right to the point. A new store just opened one block west of Manteca High School. It is essentially a head shop. The t-shirts they have for sale have every kind of obscenity you can imagine on display for all to see right when you walk in. Not to mention a slew of drug paraphernalia.

I was in the Haight-Ashbury district this weekend, and this type of store is commonplace in a hippie-land tourist trap. But not in downtown Manteca!

Now I am no saint, have in the distant past dabbled in various vices, and am a supporter of local downtown businesses — but come on, a BLOCK from the school? What was the city thinking giving this place a permit?      

I know this isn't the ‘50s, but that's no reason to fill downtown with these types of businesses.

—Bruce Goodman
Manteca