Description

I am still having an issue at our property with the homeless/criminals, most of which are committing crimes and coming into stores causing a disturbance, making it very difficult for the shop owners to do business. We have security as does the stores around us such as WaWa, Walmart etc. But every day I am seeing the same people causing issues.

Please see the email that I received from Lt. Matthew Guerra from the Ft. Lauderdale Police department. He suggests that we hire an off-duty detail officer like Walmart, Wells Fargo & Wawa. Now I drive by this property once or twice a week and I still see the same issues at those properties as well. This is an issue that is really bad along Broward Blvd. from I95 going west. Residents and Tourists come to the area to enjoy our shops and beaches and right now they don’t feel safe at all with the way things are being run. When someone steals a tip jar, argues with patrons, is peeing in our dumpsters and on the sidewalks in front of kids & their parents – the response time for the Ft. Lauderdale police can easily be an hour wait.

So, I am not sure what to do at this point because the area needs to be cleaned up and I don’t feel that 4 weeks of extra patrolling helped, even though the officer said it led to numerous contacts and several arrests. This is a district problem within the City of Fort Lauderdale and before escalating my concerns, I want to see if the City can do anything else to resolve this ongoing issue.