With fans coming back to see the Wild home opener Tuesday night, businesses are wondering if the increase in fan traffic will change the problems of crime and violence on West 7th Street.
Early in the morning of October 10th, St. Paul experienced a mass shooting where one person was killed and several others were wounded. Many of the restaurant owners and other business owners in that area are calling for more police, calling for more effort and work to be done to try to shut down some of the criminal activity.
Brent Frederick who is with the ownership group of Parlour on West 7th, Jester Concepts, joined Susie Jones on the WCCO Morning News and discussed the issues they’ve had to deal with in the area.
Frederick says it is still an exciting night welcoming hockey fans back to the Xcel Energy Center for Wild Hockey.
“It’s been what, 20 months since the last time they were playing in The X in front of people, so that'll be exciting,” Frederick says.
Frederick says it’s already been a tough experience dealing with the pandemic and the crime issues the city has faced has made it that much harder.
“I think to say it's been interesting with probably an understatement,” Frederick explains. “I think all restaurants have had it tough. Not just West 7th, but you know the pandemic and then you add in a few other colorful things kind of going on as far as new locating of homeless shelters, other things going away and not having a police presence. Things have just gotten interesting, put it that way.”
Frederick did tell WCCO that the conversations they’ve had with law enforcement have been “great”.
“We were doing kind of a biweekly Zoom calls with city council member (Rebecca) Noecker and the police department and from the planning commissions,” Frederick says. “A lot of it was based around a homeless shelter kind of put in near the neighborhoods and businesses of West 7th.
So that's been the predominant conversation we've had in the last, I would say, five or six months.”
Frederick says he understands the need for the shelter, but says the actual location has brought in some activity that has been bad for local businesses.
“I will say that I think what they're doing is great,” Frederick begins. “The services they're providing are wonderful. I think the people over there are great. I got a chance to do a walk through. I'm not saying anything bad about the people or what they're doing, but the planning commission and the city council decided that this would be a good spot to put that. The businesses and I think most of the residents would disagree. I think where it got moved from was typically in an area a little bit more commercially driven during the day and not so much restaurants open at night. What that's bringing in is just some people that are being attracted to the people that are being helped.”
Frederick says that they’ve seen a big increase in petty crimes, vagrancy, panhandling and loitering and defecation.
“More of that has happened the last ten months and it wasn't there before,” Frederick says. “We had our occasional person looking for change on West 7th, but that was never disrupting business. Now we have to escort people out of the bathroom because they think they're going to stay there overnight.
Or they lock themselves in and people coming in and dining and ditching. That never happened before. So I think that it can get curtailed. I think the police have done a really nice job. They've been down there, they've been present. We just need them there a little bit longer at night now.”
Frederick is complimentary of St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, but says more needs to be done to help West 7th businesses.
“I respect Mayor Carter quite a bit,” says Frederick. “He comes into our establishment a lot and we like having him. I haven't had a chance to talk with him so I really can't say whether he's doing a great job or he needs work. But I'll tell you what, I think West 7th needs work. I think he could take a little closer look that way.”
