Hope on Main Street

Today I popped in on my old pal, Mark Policki, who owns Bristol Cleaners and Custom

Tailors on Main Street, a few doors down from our new office at the Press.

Regular readers may remember Policki's plight - that he was having such a tough go of it in the lousy economy that he gave up the apartment he'd had for many years and moved in with family to keep expenses down and hang on to the shop.

Mark's usually smiling, so I wasn't surprised to see him grinning today, but he told me business was up a little bit. He said he had hope.

I was mighty happy to hear that. He's still there, has some new customers and figures things will improve a lot when the former mall site across the street is developed. He's guessing that will be about five years from now.

So if you have dry cleaning, bring it over to Mark. He'll learn your name and you'll feel welcome there. And we'll keep one more Main Street business from falling victim to the woes of downtown and the recession.

Those doors between my office and Mark's shop? Vacant.