Fed up with panhandlers and loiterers, downtown merchants are suggesting their own kind of vigilante justice.
Downtown merchants met with police yesterday to voice concerns about the atmosphere on Pacific Avenue, the Sentinel reports. They fear potential customers are turned off by the aggressive panhandling they encounter on the street outside their shops and the preponderance of unsavory characters flagrantly violating the city’s alcohol and smoking ordinances.
Jeremy Neuner of NextSpace suggested merchants take turns walking the streets and telling loiterers to move on. “I’m not particularly interested in people’s civil rights right now,” he says.
Lieutenant Rick Martinez of the SCPD’s downtown unit says that he appreciates the merchants’ concerns and is willing to put more officers on the street to enforce local laws. Under current economic conditions, however, the SCPD has problems of its own, and suggests that maintaining heightened police presence may be untenable in the long run.
Read More at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
