Long time lurker, first time poster here. I have spent a fair amount of time at the downtown mall on my work trips to UVA. I always stayed at the Omni and went out to the bars and restaurants on the mall. The last time that I was there (about a year ago or so) I went into Miller's bar. I heard they had pool tables upstairs, so my colleagues and I went up to check it out. We were completely and utterly shocked by what we saw. Most of the people in there were meth addicts. Many had sunken faces, missing or grey teeth, sickly skinny, scratched up faces. We looked at each other in shock because it was nothing you would expect in the downtown mall in Charlottesville. We attempted to play a game a pool, but one man accused me of being an IRA spy and it became quite scary, so we left. My point is that this even though their are many upscale restaurants and shops in this area, there are also many seedy characters.