TO THE EDITOR OF THE STRANGER: Our shop, Yazdi, was subject to a negative, perhaps even mean-spirited reference in your paper ["Broadway Bust," July 6]; a conclusion was reached by means other than even-handed investigation. In an article about the Broadway Market, Ms. Allie-Holly Gottlieb states that one does not see people carrying shopping bags that are from Yazdi. She is wrong. Several thousand shoppers have carried bags out of our Broadway Market shop each and every year from 1993 to the present, as many now as before. Our June 2000 sales were our best June sales ever at the Broadway Market, up by 6.1 percent. We had excellent years in both 1998 and 1999.

Is this not a very spotty and inaccurate way to report someone's sales--to sit in a mall for a couple hours and watch for bags? We surmise that our customers walked past your scientist on the way to our shop and then left the mall by a different exit. Would your anthropological reporter like to see our stack of paid invoices for bags, boxes, and tissue paper (all reusable and recyclable)? Reporting dictates getting facts from people in possession of the facts. Why not ask Yazdi about Yazdi sales? Your reporter never communicated with us in any way.

We are proud of our business. Our Broadway store is a great neighborhood store with wonderful repeat customers. Beyond sales and profits, we are local and independent; we have a big selection; we believe we offer great service; we know we take a small margin. We have for years given to many independent charity auctions because our address is in the community--not dot-com. We believe in the Broadway neighborhood, we see improvements in the Broadway Market, including new tenants; we are pleased with the new management and we aren't going anywhere.

Julie J. Garmire, Owner

EDITOR: I am writing this in regard to the article "Broadway Bust." Although business might be down overall in Broadway Market, the author failed to acknowledge any successes.

Granted, there will always be people [shopping at] Fred Meyer or the Gap, but that would be true if they were located anywhere. That doesn't mean other independent businesses located in Broadway Market have not had a great deal of success. Yazdi is an extremely successful store from which many people I know religiously shop. The author of this article somehow chose to ignore the fact that they have improved sales dramatically over the past few years, and proceeded to use them as an example of where people are not shopping. There was no rebuttal or comments taken from anyone from Yazdi. There is no reason to pick on a locally owned stored like Yazdi. The article was just plain mean-spirited, and it seemed as if it was printed to destroy what is left of Broadway Market.

L. Johnson, Seattle

DEAR EDITOR: I read the article about the "Broadway Bust" and hope you find room to correct some misstatements that were made in the article. Broadway and especially Broadway Market are going through a regeneration time, and Madison Marquette has a great track record of coming into an area and helping refurbish and give life to urban shopping centers that have been on a downward spiral. One of the best things to have happened to Broadway Market in a long time is that Madison Marquette purchased it, and has such great experience in creating hip urban retail centers--not just "run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter" shopping malls. To compare a huge mall, such as Southcenter, to an urban community retail center such as Broadway Market also doesn't make any sense.

Sallye Soltner, Seattle

THE EDITORS RESPOND: It's great to know that Yazdi is doing well. The point of Holly-Gottlieb's article, however, was not that Yazdi was doing poorly--which it evidently is not--but that our hot economy has not touched down on Broadway, or at the Broadway Market, which these letter-writers acknowledge ("destroy what is left of Broadway Market...," "Madison Marquette has a great track record of [giving] life to urban shopping centers that have been on a downward spiral."). It's a fact that the Broadway Market has numerous empty stores, and that should be of concern to every merchant on Broadway, including successful ones. Holly-Gottlieb's observation after spending a day at the Broadway Market--she saw people with Gap bags; she did not see people with Yazdi bags--was presented as just that, an observation, and not as market research or a scientific sample.

Dope Wars on the Palm is pretty good ["Dope Wars," Paula Gilovich, July 6]. It would have been gracious for the author to mention that it's a knockoff of Taipan, an Apple II game written by Art Canfil in 1982, in which you play a trader in the Orient in the 1860s, dealing in opium, silk, arms, and general cargo while dodging (and paying off) the local crime lord. Oddly, someone just made a version of Taipan for the Palm, too.

Bill Dugan, Newcastle, WA

DEAR MR. SAVAGE: Thank you for being the only person in the Seattle media to take the monorail seriously ["Experience Monorail Project," June 29]. Your arguments in favor of the monorail are well taken. My brother-in-law lives in Lille, France. Lille has a three-line monorail that works well--probably because they bought it from the Germans--so the monorail is something people elsewhere have done. Cities like Chicago and New York, with extensive transit systems, have better traffic conditions than much-smaller Seattle. As my wife (who is from New York) points out, transit here is crap by comparison. The opposition of our elected officials to the monorail is inexplicable. Maybe you should run for city council.

Robert M. Ellis, Seattle

TO THE EDITOR: Thanks for trying to keep the monorail on, er, track. Dan's and others' right-on articles have inspired me to write city officials e-mails that would make even your editors blanch. I'm also encouraged by your latest issue's inclusion of ways to get involved. Really, you ought to do that more often. I suspect many of us would be grateful if you'd give us an idea of how to kill light rail, as well.

Bernie Schlotfeldt, Seattle

TO THE EDITOR: Regarding your "review" of the video in which animals are slowly and painfully crushed to death ["Crush Freaks," C. Everett Treacle, June 29]: Are you aware these types of videos are illegal in the U.S. under new federal legislation? The "crush video" bill was recently signed into law after quickly being passed by both the House and the Senate because of the animal cruelty and inherent sickness of the individuals who are responsible. In New York, an individual is currently facing animal cruelty charges for the creation and distribution of such videos.

Joyce Friedman, New York

Grant Cogswell obviously doesn't have to get off of the bus at Third and Pine with his infant child every afternoon to go to work ["Honky Tonkin,'" June 29]. If he did, he would be grateful that he no longer has to make his way lugging a diaper bag and pushing a stroller through groups of drug pushers, buyers, whatever. It was a relief when McDonald's started playing that loud country music. As for "a rich corporation waves this country's racism in the faces of black children"--since when did playing country music become considered racist? Does that mean people who enjoy that music and play it loudly hate black people? Does that mean that people who play black artists hate white people?

Brandy Burr, Capitol Hill

BARLEY BLAIR: I don't know how you did it, but you sneaked TWO positive movie reviews into The Stranger! For two consecutive weeks no less! First there was your glowing review of the Faith Hubley double feature ["Eight Minutes of Everything," July 6], and now a loving summary of Blood Simple ["Divided and Conquered," July 13]! Wow! Gee! Blair, you might not know this, but folks around here DREAD The Stranger's reviews. They are unrelentingly negative. Every reviewer on this paper has an ax to grind, and they just grind and grind and grind it. But not you! You seem to genuinely enjoy the movies you get paid to watch! You actually generate enthusiasm for these films! How brave of you! How wonderfully un-cool!

Joshua Okrent, Greenwood

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: An article in last week's paper about the three Seattle Police Chief candidates ["What's Wrong with These People?" Phil Campbell, July 13] implied that the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle supports candidate Gil Kerlikowske, the former police commissioner of Buffalo, New York. It is, in fact, the Buffalo chapter of the Urban League that backs Kerlikowske.