Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I’m writing to express my concern about the recent events I have experienced in local businesses in the Mathews/Gloucester area. 

I am a part of the Mathews community, and have been for my entire life. In the last five years, I have been working inside the county. 

More than once, and in several different business establishments, I have walked in, and not received any sort of greeting.

As a paying customer, whose money is just as green as anyone else’s,  there is no way that in a small business, when I walk in, and I can see you looking at me, that you should not speak.

Recently, the workers in one business didn’t speak to me, not once, even when I purchased goods from them. There was no “Thank you for your business” or any acknowledgment at all.

I expect this sort of treatment in a big department store, where a worker might not see you come in, but even in these corporate places, they are trained to ask if the...