L E T T E R S
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SUPPORTS MADAKET MARKET

To the editor:

Our family owns a home in Madaket and is a strong supporter of Ande Grennan's proposal to convert and divide his property now known as the West End into a market with an apartment for its manager and a private home.

The benefits of a full service market in Madaket are compelling. For Madaket residents, the convenience of having a place during the season to buy the newspaper, coffee and food basics adds character, simplicity and ease to our summer lifestyle. It is a destination for our kids on their bicycles; for parents with their strollers; and for all of us who need more eggs and bacon for a Sunday breakfast or sandwiches and juice for the beach.

It is important that such a market be an economically attractive proposition to its owner, however, that requires more than sundries like butter and donuts. Clearly, the authority to sell wine, beer and liquor is not only a convenience to those of us in Madaket, but a critical ingredient to making this a viable venture.

One of the charms of Nantucket is our bike path to all parts of the island. With a market at the end of Madaket Road, Nantucket will continue to serve its visitors with not only a beautiful and safe bicycle ride but an oasis at the end of such a journey for refreshments.

Having a market at the end of Madaket significantly enhances Madaket as a destination for our visitors, where they can not only enjoy the scenery of the trip, Madaket Beach, and our sunsets but know that they can buy needed water, supplies for the beach, or ice cream for their kids. The absence of such services as a retail market will tend to leave Madaket more to its residents, while being underserved without a market, which would be a disservice to all of us who love all of Nantucket, including our visitors.

Finally, for all of us who seek to navigate the sometimes busy streets of Nantucket during the season, any dispersion of retail demand absolutely leads to less traffic across the island. There is surely enough purchasing power on the island during the season that adding an expanded market and store with a liquor license in Madaket will not reduce demand at existing outlets.

We have all been saddened by the possibility of losing our market at the end of Madaket Road. It really does add an important element to the Nantucket experience for everyone who enjoys the island. Thus the article in the December 6 issue of The Independent gave us some hope that an expanded market is a real possibility.

While we haven't spoken to Ande about these plans, our hope is that the Nantucket community rallies around this idea and even helps support it financially, if necessary, to get it off the ground. Once we do converse with Ande, we, for example would be very happy to contribute $500 to his venture, with only the comfort of knowing that our market, in an expanded form, will still be there in return. Sincerely, — Wende Cohen

— Rick Levin

Madaket

IF NANTUCKET DOES NOT APPROVE, LET THEM SECEDE

To the editor: Anyone needing an AR-15 or a Kalashnikov to

hunt deer or elk probably needs a new pair of glasses first. Anyone needing an automatic shotgun to hunt pheasants, rabbits or partridge probably needs a prescription from a neurologist to reduce finger tremors or fight off tension.

I do not wish to change the constitutional amendment giving an organized militia the rights to bear arms, withdrawn from a carefully tended armory. The National Rifle Association has abandoned the parts of the amendment relating to “organized militia” and “tended armory.” The NRA is NOT an organized militia, according to its charter.

I believe we should remember that the arms of 1789 were smoothbore Kentucky rifles and that discharge was accomplished by a flint-lock striking a steel, and sending a spark into some gunpowder that ignited the propellant and sent the bullet (or buckshot) on its wiggly way. This was a single shot device (or two shot, with two flint-locks and two barrels). Not even the “six-shooter” was invented at that time. My point is that single-shot weapons, with a long time to re-load, remove school and office massacres that can be caused by automatic weapons.

While it may take another few years to bring sanity to all of our states, I am sure that sanity can prevail in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and possibly even Rhode Island Plantations. If Nantucket does not approve, let them secede and we will cut off ferry service to them from our shores, and fill the sound with windmills.

All local deer will hold us dear.

— Bernard Roth