Lack of Hospitality?

I recently returned from a cross-country automobile trip between Arroyo Grande, Calif., and Tampa, Fla., and discovered there is a lack of hospitality provided tourists who cross into California. From New Mexico eastward to Florida, every state provides a welcome station after the border is crossed.

California doesn’t offer that service. When you cross into California from Arizona, there is an agricultural checkpoint, but no welcome station. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama not only provide a major welcome station with clean restrooms and plenty of personnel to answer your questions, but they offer maps and brochures.

Maybe California has a good reason for not having a tourist welcome station at the border, but it seems to be a penny-wise, pound-foolish policy.

ARNOLD STONE

Arroyo Grande, Calif.