Passage Summary: A store owner learned that lights stop vandals, and then the vandalism stopped; a friend assumes the owner must have put up the lights.

Conclusion: The store owner installed bright lighting around the store's perimeter.

Reasoning: The owner learned that bright lighting reduces vandalism, and three months later, the vandalism had stopped.

Analysis: This argument assumes that because a known solution exists and the problem went away, that specific solution must have been the cause. To weaken this, we could suggest the owner never installed the lights, or that a different factor (like increased police presence) stopped the vandals. Since this is an 'EXCEPT' question, the correct answer will be the only one that does not provide an alternative explanation or cast doubt on the lighting being the cause. It might even be a total non-sequitur or something that actually supports the friend's guess.