Despite the fact that a juice bar won’t be opening in Campustown, the community should reflect on what it has learned from the recent controversy.

The truth is, a Campustown juice bar might have been able to survive. The issue, however, isn’t whether it should, but whether it could. Squelching the chances of a “distasteful” business isn’t governmental responsibility.

Constitutionality and egalitarian tolerance prevail over feelings of prudish queasiness.

We must realize that city ordinances aren’t needed to prevent these types of establishment from opening their doors. Instead, what people need to do, like they did in this instance, is loudly voice their opposition.

But even if an establishment were to open, community residents should wage not a political war, but an economic one. In conjunction to opening one’s mouth, closing ones wallet is message enough to make a business both uneasy and unwanted. So, we must understand it’s not an establishment that creates conflict, but the powers that try to keep it closed. An ordinance is only a reminder of our intolerance, and a weak memorial to what our society does, and does not value.