The following appeared as a letter to the editor from a Central Plaza store owner.

"Over the past two years, the number of shoppers in Central Plaza has been steadily decreasing while the popularity of skateboarding has increased dramatically. Many Central Plaza store owners believe that the decrease in their business is due to the number of skateboard users in the plaza. There has also been a dramatic increase in the amount of litter and vandalism throughout the plaza. Thus, we recommend that the city prohibit skateboarding in Central Plaza. If skateboarding is prohibited here, we predict that business in Central Plaza will return to its previously high levels."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

The argument that forbidding skateboarding would help the business in Central Plaza flourish, bringing it back to its earlier opulence, is not entirely logically convincing, since it is based on certain mistaken assumptions. Firstly, the store owner states that skateboarding is an increasingly popular activity in Central Plaza, and refers to the opinions of various colleagues who argue that this has had a detrimental effect on sales. However, these views are based on perceptions and lack facts or further analyses that would give credibility to this cause-effect relation. In other words, the decrease in sales could be caused by various and varied factors, which seemingly have not been taken into account. In fact, contrary to what is told, one could think that the growing amount of skaters could be beneficial for the stores, as more customers would be attracted. Secondly, even supposing that the current problems of dirt and vandalism were caused by some of the skaters, these facts should be investigated and judicially proved before any measures are taken. Lastly, the reasons why banning is suggested as the right ultimate solution remain unclear. In addition, these matters could be solved in a varied range of ways, not necessarily through prohibition. Perhaps prohibition would lead to some behaviours that would be even more negative for the Central Plaza. In conclusion, as the number of flaws shows, the assumption that forbidding skateboarding would immediately result in an improvement of the incomes has no scientific support and is simply a wrong measure for a mistaken diagnose. Consequently, the argument is not completely sound. Ultimately, the statement might have been strengthened if the writer could have proved that the vandalism and dirtiness problems are caused by the skaters, that these people are the only or the main factor that scares potential clients away and causes the sinking of sales, and that prohibition is the only effective way of tackling this issue effectively and restoring the previous richness in Central Plaza.