Editor,

I was so glad to read in last week’s Bayside Gazette that the new owner of the building rented by Downtown Video was not going to “kick her out” and is giving the owner the option of renewing her lease.

I am sure I speak for all of the many longtime customers of Downtown Video when I say that we would hate to see another of Berlin’s few remaining original quaint and fast becoming “one of a kind” shops leave.

The fact that a video rental store has been around for so long and still going strong in the age of movies rented from a box on the store corner, or outrageously priced On-Demand cable movies, it is a testament to the Downtown Video’s owner, who makes her customers feel as if they are friends and family.

With businesses and shops in Berlin opening and closing and playing “musical stores,” I was afraid the Main Street not only residents know and love, but tourists and “movie location scouts” come to see, would be morphed into a street of cloned stops all selling the same items, (when they bother to open and then hard put to remain open past 3 p.m.) or drinking establishments, of which I think we have quite enough of.

Long time residents have seen so many of the shops which made Berlin special leaving or closing, like the recently closed Shoe Repair shop — another of one of a kind store that we will most likely never see again, anywhere.

Recently, I noticed on a Sunday evening, looking down from the upper balcony of Fins, Main Street looked like a ghost town with only Fins, Downtown Video and the ice cream shop open for business as far as the eye could see.

I only hope that the new owner of the Downtown Video property doesn’t rent-hike her out of business, as many new property owners tend to do.

Karla Davis, Berlin