My question is whether the man shooting up Austin, Texas, after the bars closed on Thanksgiving night would have been prevented from doing so if businesses closed for the holiday. I blame “business as usual” for the shooter’s death, the diplomatic debacle at the Mexican consulate, and the town’s damages.
My friend Mary Jo’s father, who was a young man visiting Europe before WWI, was president and later a board member of Seattle First National Bank. Mary Jo said her mother was not a skilled cook, so bought holiday meals prepared by the oldest business club in Seattle, The Rainier Club, begun the year before statehood. The meals were packaged for pick up the day before the holiday, then taken home and refrigerated for the next day’s meal because the Rainier Club gave its staff the holiday off to be with family and friends.
Unlike my registered nurse sister, who was systematically given either Christmas or Thanksgiving off work, when I worked for the Rainier Club and Broadmore Golf and Country Club, in the 1980s, I was expected to work on all holidays serving members’ families. This upset me and my family life considerably.
My niece is a manager of a retail store and had to leave her family early on Thanksgiving Day and work until midnight. Holidays are designated to allow family and friend time, or at least relaxation. Non-essential businesses that remain open, such as the Austin, Texas, bar, create a menace by bringing people out of their homes into the public space. Business interests taking over holidays require public servants, such as police, to be out in greater numbers to keep the peace, thereby depriving their families of their presence as well.
Rosemarie Dickson Cook
Everett
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