I was reading of course, The New London Day today, and the letter below is a Letter to the Editor, that I find quite interesting and definately something to think about.

If you have ever been to Mystic, CT you will notice on each street corner, is a Church, Ice cream Parlor, Pizza Place on each corner going in and out of Mystic and of course BARS! Redundant yes, but it could just be we like choice.
In Groton, we have Long Hill Road ( or Hamburger Hill locals call it), Which has McDonalds, Burger King right next to each other, Applebee's, 99 across the street from each other, a little further Wendy's, and 3 pizza places. It is to say Southeastern CT likes to eat and have as many options as possible.


"I was driving around town — er, I mean, the city — the other day, and noticed that there's a new Starbucks about to open near Big Y in Groton. My first thought, naturally, was to call my friend in East Lyme to gloat about yet another reason why Groton is better. But then I started to think about how there are now three Starbucks in our, um, city/town, and at least five Dunkin' Donuts.
Has anyone else noticed that Groton seems to have a problem with redundancy? We are both a city and a town, each with its own budget, municipal building, parks and recreation department and mayor. I'm wondering if there isn't a connection between this problem with repetition and Groton's higher-than-average caffeine consumption. As a community, we seem to require some serious Joe. I myself am no latte-sipping lightweight. My brew of choice is a hot turbo at Dunkin' Donuts, and a Red Eye at Starbucks, which are essentially cups of coffee with an added shot of espresso — again, the redundancy thing.

I'm thinking maybe there's a Pfizer connection here. After all, it has redundancy issues of its own, what with offices all over New London and Groton. Maybe it's all that military training, but at least Electric Boat sticks to Groton (City, that is), in those same petrified buildings they've been in for the past 100 years (except for the newish “engineering” building, which houses senior staff, the finance department and a terrific conference/movie room). And they build only one thing — submarines — and even those are usually just one at a time.

Back to Pfizer — could they be experimenting on us? Is that why we keep forgetting we already have enough coffee shops in town? Did I ask that already?

Leslie Westhaver
Groton