How can violence at Walden Galleria be reduced?

Cheektowaga, N.Y. (WBEN) - After a recent incident at a restaurant at Walden Galleria over the weekend, the question of violence at the mall is back in the spotlight.

Supervisor Brian Nowak says incidents like the one at Aloha Krab Sunday night don't happen often, but are taken seriously. "When you have so many people concentrated in an area, whether it's public parks, events like the football games, just any footprint where you're getting well over 10 million people a year in terms of the foot count that's going through this, through the Galleria Mall, you're going to have certain incidents, and our goal is to get those numbers as close to zero as possible," says Nowak. "II feel that mall management and the ownership are working in good faith to our local police department, to do the best they can, to have plans in place for security, for ensuring the place is safe."

Nowak says there's no particular rhyme or reason behind violence. "It's not like there's one single source to say it's not just young kids, it's not just at one particular business, it's not just at one particular time of year. So when the ownership, the local PD, the management team, the security folks, are all getting together to discuss reaction and ways to address these issues in the future, it's not like we can pinpoint one particular push point or one particular issue to say that, Oh, if we close them all down on Sundays, for instance, or if we didn't have it open at Christmas, or we just changed the curfews that would solve the problem, because there is no one driver there. It's just having lots of folks that are concentrated in one place at one time, that unfortunately, you're going to have incidents like this come up from time to time," notes Nowak.

WNY Peacekeepers joins Cheektowaga Police and Walden Galleria security in patrolling the mall on weekends. Pastor James Giles says that helps keeps fights down to a minimum on weekends. "We're in the community five days a week at every single major high school, so most of the students and the children that are out there, coming out there, doing that, we know them, and so it's a different look for when you have peacemakers that look like them, that are engaged in trying to stop this fight. They soon break that up," says Giles. "Matter of fact, they try to avoid and the reason is, is because we know their parents, we know their cousins, we know their uncles, and we know them, and most of them know us."

Giles believes the Galleria is a safe space. "It serves a really important role for our community, because, you know, the stores are gone and they're leaving. We don't have downtown, Main Place Mall. We don't have the Boulevard Mall. So the Walden Galleria has a place. So now, in terms of the violence, for the most part, Walden Galleria is a safe space," he explains.

Walden Galleria says the incident Sunday night was an unauthorized after hours event at Aloha Krab. There was a disturbance inside that moved outside. The mall says it's working with Cheektowaga Police to avoid a repeat of the incident.