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The StarPhoenix broke the news last week that a local business owner was so tired of the constant robberies and vandalism in his store that he is selling the business and thinking of moving back to Pakistan.

The incidents have taken away his will to run his business — a small grocery store in Westmount. It is the kind of small business that urban planners and politicians talk about being desirable when describing a vibrant neighbourhood.

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It’s the kind of place that you can count on to have whatever it is you need at the last minute, or where your kids can run down to get a cold snack on a hot day. We tend to think of these as neighbourhood institutions, not a target for repeated robberies.

Hamid Khan isn’t alone. I was having lunch in my favourite lunch spot this winter shortly after a break-in there. It had been plundered for the booze and for the till float. Variations of that story are told by a large number of small and large businesses that have to factor the rising crime in Saskatoon as a cost of doing business.