A group of neighborhood business representatives calling themselves the Pike/Pine/Broadway Safety Coalition are calling on the city and the East Precinct to do more to combat street disorder and what they call “open air drug markets” at Broadway and Pike and near Cal Anderson Park.
The group led city officials including Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess and District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth on a tour of the areas Friday that included plenty of ideas for change — and a flaming reminder of challenges after someone set fire to a portable toilet in Cal Anderson during the tour.
There was another stark reminder over the weekend after a woman was hospitalized in an overnight shooting in the parking lot above the Broadway and Pike QFC just up the stairs from a stop on Friday’s tour.
The coalition group including representatives from QFC-parent company Kroger, the Broadway at Pike Harvard Market shopping center’s ownership, local developers and building owners Hunters Capital and Dunn & Hobbes, and the GSBA, has placed drug dealing fueled by the fentanyl crisis at the center of its calls for help, citing areas outside the Pike QFC, in front of 11th Ave businesses south of Pike, and on Nagle Place next to Cal Anderson as “drug markets” and “a massive health hazard and public safety problem.”
“There are visible weapons and frequent violence. Addicts are in crisis and people donโt know who to call to help,” the group wrote in an “issues and requests” document distributed by the GSBA’s Laura Culberg for Friday’s tour. “Business owners and property owners are cleaning up bloody messes and dangerous drug waste.” Continue reading