C.E. Lovejoy’s Brookswood Market serves a neighborhood in which both love and joy seem to be temporarily in short supply. There’s no easy fix to the underlying problem, which is the Department of Motor Vehicles’ decision to set up shop in a questionable location. But as a substitute for a solution, boycotting the market leaves a lot to be desired — notably, common sense and compassion.

The commercial center that houses the DMV and the affected businesses, Brookswood Meadow Plaza, sits on the very edge of the RiverRim subdivision. Many neighbors believe that the DMV office will increase traffic in the area and, perhaps, lower their property values. They also point out, correctly, that it’s inconsistent with the intent of the plaza’s zoning, which is to serve a relatively small area. The DMV will serve the entire city of Bend.

But the DMV says it isn’t going to move its office, and it doesn’t have to. Its location appears to satisfy the letter of the city’s zoning ordinance even though it violates its intent.

Hence the boycott. Unable to budge the state, neighbors have taken aim at the plaza’s owners, who also own C.E. Lovejoy’s. One of those owners, Scott Lovejoy, told The Bulletin this week that his store is feeling the pinch, though it isn’t in danger of closing.

Good.

Let’s assume that the boycott did close the store. The owners of the store and the plaza probably wouldn’t like the result very much. But they wouldn’t be alone. C.E. Lovejoy’s employs 26 people, according to Travis Lovejoy, the son of owner Scott. What did these people do to harm RiverRim residents? Sell them food?

Meanwhile, it’s more than a little strange to lash out at a business that does belong in the plaza — the market — in order to protest a business that doesn’t. Or would transforming a market into an empty storefront have some beneficial effect on local property values that we’re not aware of? There’s a “cutting off your nose to spite your face” quality to much of this.

We doubt the DMV office will affect the RiverRim neighborhood as significantly as some believe. The plaza’s on the very edge of the neighborhood, after all, right next to Brookswood Boulevard. The office’s biggest flaw, by far, is its inconvenient distance from the vast majority of Bend residents. The Brookswood Meadow Plaza is near the city’s southern edge.

We hope RiverRim residents reconsider their boycott, which is a particularly crude instrument of revenge. But if they feel that they absolutely must boycott something, there’s a much more appropriate target than C.E. Lovejoy’s Brookswood Market: the DMV office that started this controversy. Once it opens, opponents should feel free to drive right by and renew their licenses at the agency’s office in Redmond.