The goal is good: Maintaining the local flavor of the downtown core and helping local businesses thrive.

The strategy is bad: Banning “formula businesses.”

A city zoning ordinance change to prohibit formula businesses downtown has gone to the Anacortes City Council for further review. It arrives after much discussion by, but no endorsement from, the Anacortes Planning Commission, which rightly questioned the scope of this sweeping change that could keep many attractive businesses out of downtown.

The council should just say no.

Finding ways to keep businesses out of downtown doesn’t make much sense to us. Rather we should be finding ways to stimulate investment in the downtown (and the rest of the city) and work on attracting businesses that offer what customers here want.

The flood of Anacortes shoppers that descends on Burlington daily is a pretty strong indication that the chain stores (big ones, little ones, basic ones, upscale ones) are meeting customers’ needs. Hard to see what would be wrong with some of these stores opening their doors here and redirecting some dollars and tax revenue to Anacortes.

Radio Shack and West Marine are fine stores that are already in the core area north of 12th Street. Under the proposed zoning they are “formula businesses” with seven or more establishments, and they wouldn’t have been allowed to locate at their current sites.

Given the city’s size and the shopping landscape in the county, there’s little likelihood we’ll be overrun with chain stores downtown. We need to focus on what we want instead of what we don’t want.

The solution isn’t in tinkering with the definition of formula businesses or reworking the zoning language that’s come forward. It’s time to backtrack and approach the character of downtown through zoning changes or guidelines that focus on the design of acceptable businesses. Signage, sizes and style can all be examined.

A healthy downtown with a healthy mix of businesses is the goal — along with a business district that indeed does not look like every other town in the country.