Community, leaders weigh in on store closure
Down 12th Street, on the other side of the interstate, and a half mile from the Chattanooga Convention Center, the Marriott and the peaks of downtown, the people come to eat.
The residents of the city’s Westside are used to this, gathering underneath plastic tents every two weeks for two years to fill their arms with apples and onions and cabbages and candy bars. Most days on Grove Street are a battle against hunger and the crime that comes from it, from a revitalized city and the fear of being pushed out.
But life became much harder when authorities closed the Westside Shop last month, residents said.
“That hurt a lot of people,” said Linda, a
70-year-old woman who did not want to give her last name. “I’d get in my chair and wheel on down here. But now we’ve got to go way out to Food City in St. Elmo or the Signal Mountain Wal-Mart.”
Linda was among 100 or so residents who showed up Tuesday to receive free produce from community members and activists who say the shutdown has stripped the Westside of its only food source.
Also there was Billy Pitts, 53, who said he found refuge in College Hill Courts a few months ago after he and his daughter could no longer deal with the mold in their Patten Towers home. He used to lean on the shop for snacks and basic necessities. Now he takes the bus for a $6 round trip to Roger’s Supermarket on Main Street.
“I have to keep a lot of quarters,” Pitts said as he carried three bags of food in his hands and balanced another two boxes of Zebra Cakes under his arms.
Samuel McKinney, 60, who lives in Jaycee Towers, a 190unit home for low-income seniors, subsists on canned goods. “But fresh foods is a different story. You cannot live on canned goods alone. More people than I would like to think about [live like that],” he said.
Community members from Concerned Citizens for Justice and the local Nation of Islam say they are concerned about the food crisis, but also what Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkston’s shutdown of the shop represents.
“They’re not trying to fix anything,” Concerned Citizens member Aysja Pryor said to a group of residents gathered underneath a tent. “They’re trying to push us out.”
“They want this property!” one man shouted.
“Uh, huh,” Pryor replied. Prosecutors say the Westside Shop became a breeding ground for fights, gambling, reports of shots being fired, and occasional burglaries between 2014 and 2016, and that drug deals also sidelined the goal of providing food and necessities. The shop will remain closed until its owners can prove they’ve taken steps to address those complaints. The next court date is today at 8:30 a.m. before Criminal Court Judge Tom Greenholtz.
Last week, the owners offered to sell the empty retail space on Grove Street to the Chattanooga Police Department, which hasn’t maintained a substation there since 2003. Those negotiations will begin this week.
Kevin Muhammad likened the increase in police oversight to a war zone. “What is this, Afghanistan?” he asked.
Others continued to ask similar questions at Tuesday evening’s city council meeting.
“We’ve been giving out produce for quite some time,” Pryor said. “And there will be times when we have thousands of pounds of produce and we’re out in five minutes. There are other times where we come to set up and there’s six police cars. There are community members who are literally terrified to be at the site of a police officer.”
Councilwoman Demetrus Coonrod said the issues of crime and food availability have plagued the Westside for a long time, and said she’d like to see further discussion on how to address them.
“We need a grocery store in this area, I agree with that,” Coonrod said. “But if we opened up the grocery store tomorrow, it’s going to be the same issues. It was the same issue when I was 18. The community was starving then, but nobody took time to address the real issues.”
Muhammad presented a solution, asking the council to partner with him and the food bank to provide $250,000 for a program that would address the individual nutritional needs for Westside families living in hunger.
“We’ve been doing this for 30 years out of our pockets,” Muhammad said. “We’re only asking for .001 percent of your budget. That’s $250,000, just as a PILOT [payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement] that we can work together to build some trust. We’re asking that you write the check to the Chattanooga Area Food Bank, where 100 percent will go toward food.”
Council members showed interest in the idea, but did not say whether such an expenditure would be considered.
“We need a grocery store in this area, I agree with that. But if we opened up the grocery store tomorrow, it’s going to be the same issues.”
— COUNCILWOMAN DEMETRUS COONROD