SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — A business owner in the East Village, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he feels less safe every day because of the criminal activity outside his front doors along 14th St.
“We’ve had break-ins, we’ve had broken windows, broken doors, we’ve had threats. I came to work one day and found literally a pool of blood in my front entranceway. It’s homeless and gangs, both,” the business owner said.
He says it’s gotten so bad – it’s affecting his customers.
“We are having trouble finding and retaining customers, customers have sent us messages saying that this area is unbelievable and don’t want to go there,” the business owner said.
And now, people who live and work in the area are even more concerned after receiving a notice that the Downtown San Diego Partnership Clean & Safe program is pulling staff from the area around “tailgate park” because of threatening behavior from individuals.
“And the area would be clear, they would pick up a lot of the trash and you know, cleaned up and reduced issues of fights and screaming and tents and encampments,” the business owner said.
Larry Turner is running for mayor and is a community relations officer with the San Diego Police Department.
“They really know how to speak to these people, they know friends with a lot of them, but this there’s a new group that’s kind of showing up in this neighborhood that is not very receptive to their friendly dialogue,” Turner said. “It’s getting so dangerous that their safety ambassadors are told to not come into this area, it’s just too dangerous for them so they were so helpful to the police department because if it wasn’t for them, we’d probably have ten or twenty times as many homeless-related calls for help.”
The downtown San Diego partnership released a statement saying:
“Following several incidents in this area where staff were at risk… we are engaging with the San Diego Police department to take the necessary and immediate steps to keep both our staff and the neighborhood safe.”
The program is still handling cleaning services, especially as baseball season nears.
For now, all security issues are being referred to police, but the downtown San Diego partnership tells FOX 5/KUSI they’re confident in working with police. Staff will be able to resume their regular safety work in the area very soon.