“Sales [at the city-owned grocery store] were okay at first, but after the pandemic, crime rose and sales began to plummet.”
“Police data show assaults, robberies and shoplifting in the immediate vicinity have been on an upward trend since 2020…. At a community meeting last year, Pierson played videos of security incidents so graphic he gave a warning in advance — a naked woman parading through the store throwing bags of chips to the ground, another person urinating in the vestibule and a couple fornicating on the lawn of the library in broad daylight…. [P]olice Maj. Chris Young said that even an ‘overwhelming presence’ of officers in recent months didn’t significantly decrease incidents…. Part of the problem is the city’s lack of a jail, Young said. The left-leaning council closed the previous facility in 2009 as a cost-saving measure… and so people arrested for minor crimes are quickly released… and head back to the same location, Young said. ‘We typically have the same group of offenders every week that are recognizable by face and by name, just loitering and hanging out,’ he said. ‘A small percentage of people are ruining it for the rest of the community that deserves to go to their grocery store and their library.'”