3 letters: Tobacco licensing, ‘wealthy bullies,’ GECA congrats

No access, no hook
Dear Editor,
Thanks for covering the debate on requiring tobacco retail licensing in Gilroy. If we want to keep kids from getting hooked on tobacco, we have to keep them from getting tobacco. Research shows that one of the best ways to do that is to adopt and enforce a retail tobacco licensing ordinance in your community. That means adopting one that ensures that those retailers who are caught selling tobacco to minors lose their licenses. Any money collected goes exclusively to enforcement costs, whatever the police need to do “stings” to see if retailers are selling tobacco to minors, or to follow-up on complaints that retailers are selling to minors. Compared to the thousands of dollars retailers pay for an alcohol license that helps pay for the same service for that drug, the hundreds of dollars asked of the tobacco retailers is more than fair.
Margo Sidener, President and CEO, Breathe California
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‘Time to stand up to these wealthy bullies’
Dear Editor,
First thank you for printing one of my letters. You have restored my faith in the Gilroy Dispatch.
First of all Alan Viarengo was right, I am the Daniel Garcia that said years ago to raise taxes to save the State of California. It worked! Thank you Jerry Brown, sometimes us tax and spend liberals get it right, Viarengo is a crackpot.
Second the sidewalks in Gilroy with the exception of Sixth Street that never gets used and downtown are still a problem: Look between Church and Eighth streets and Eigleberry. There is no sidewalk on half the street on Eighth Street.
Third, have you driven down 10th Street lately on the way to Walmart and Kohl’s? The street is a mess with holes everywhere. The most used street in Gilroy!
Where Viarengo is wrong is my so-called welfare check no it didn’t get bigger. When you’re handicapped, you live in poverty..
So there is a new distribution center coming to Gilroy. They say in two to four years they will be hiring people in Gilroy. But their opening is slated for next summer, so why two to four years?
Maybe Mayor Gage and wealthy Perry Woodward should run on creating jobs. Mr. Gage, Mr. Woodward: Where are all the jobs during this big building period we are having?
Instead we now have talk about tobacco and another new ordinance. I hope it fails.
You want to save downtown even on the westside? Do what we did in the good old days: Put all activities in the downtown areas, not at Christmas Hill but downtown!
If we have little or no money we need jobs and apartments. It’s time to stand up to these wealthy bullies.
Yours truly,
Daniel Garcia
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Congratulations to GECA
Dear Editor,
 I want to wish each and every graduate, in Gilroy, a BIG CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!
A special wish goes to the 2014 senior class at Dr. T.J. Owens Gilroy Early College Academy (GECA). It holds its classes at Gavilan.  US News released the Best High School rankings, out of the 31,200 public high schools that they analyzed, in the United States. GECA ranked #161 out of the 31,200.. How great is that! Congratulations to the students, faculty and teachers.
Jacqui Holladay, Gilroy