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I stopped at the Shell station right across from the Bannister Mall site late at night last week. I generally wouldn't do that, but I was out of gas and I didn't want to drive home in the snow and stuff with a low tank, in case I got stuck in traffic or whatever.
While I didn't think it was "unsafe" for me to be there, I didn't have an urge to hang out very long. I mean, nobody said anything to me, but there were a bunch of people inside the store just hanging out, and outside there were people who looked like ne'er-do-wells hanging out there in the parking lot and on the curb toward the side of the store, even for as cold as it was.
It's not even the looks that you get if you're the minority someplace. It's that... well, who hangs out at a gas station at 1:30 in the morning or so? And they weren't kids, they were older than high school age. It's natural to think that people hanging out in a gas station parking lot that late might be up to no good.
They had a security guard inside the store as well, which never really entices me as a consumer to make frequent stops there.
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