Gas stations unlikely to be shuttered after fatal shootings
Cheesecake Girl is 1st rotating vendor
Gas stations have not escaped the increased gun violence that has spread through Columbus like a plague amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Since mid-october, four homicides have been reported at gas station parking lots across the city, three of which have been on the city’s East Side.
The most recent fatality occurred after a shooting early on the morning of Feb. 24 at the Eagle Fuels gas station and convenience store at 3850 E. Livingston Ave. on the East Side, located across from a post office branch. Marsean Kato, 20, of the East Side, died Tuesday of injuries he suffered after being shot multiple times in the gas station parking lot.
On Jan. 6, a North Linden man died after being shot in the early morning hours at the Sunoco gas station at the intersection of East Hudson Street and Joyce Avenue on the city’s Northeast Side. David Gaines, 62, was rushed in critical condition to Ohiohealth Grant Medical Center, where he died about an hour after officers responded to the shooting scene.
But while the Columbus City Attorney’s Office has aggressively pursued legal action to board up nuisance residential and some business properties, City Attorney Zach Klein said gas stations likely won’t face such nuisance abatement injunctions.
Because all four fatal shootings since last October took place at separate gas stations, Klein said his office is not in the process of seeking the shuttering of those businesses.
The reason, Klein said, is that a single act of violence at any business — including a gas station — isn’t enough to seek a court order for closure of the property.
“We have to build a case based upon a pattern of violence or drug activity or other illegal activity over
a period of time that qualifies a place as a neighborhood nuisance,” he said. “A shooting can put a place on our radar screen for us to investigate further, but we have to have enough evidence to convince a judge that this is a problem property and will continue to be in the future if it’s not addressed by the court.”
Some residents say that an individual gas station may not be the site of multiple homicides, but that doesn’t mean other nuisances don’t persist long before it culminates in someone’s death.
Kim Watkins, president of the Beechwood Civic Association, alleged that the 24-hour Eagle Fuels gas station and market where Kato was mortally wounded has been a magnet for drug trafficking, prostitution and other trouble for years. “That is a smorgasbord for infestation for everything that can go bad in a neighborhood,” Watkins said.
One problem is that Eagle Fuels allows loitering outside, Watkins said. People outside have approached her selling laptops as well as handicapped parking stickers for $5, she said.
Problems have been reported to Columbus police in the past, Watkins said. She also said she has confronted store managers about problems.
Watkins said one told her, “You talk to your people. I just sell them things.”
“I’ve been living in this neighborhood for 29 years. It’s been going on for 15 years,” Watkins said. “When is enough enough? Hold these people accountable.”
A person who said they were a manager at the Eagle Fuels station said they would not comment when reached Friday. Kato was shot around 3:25 a.m. on Feb. 24 along with another man who was hospitalized but survived their injuries. Police said at least two cars were involved in the incident.
About four miles away from the Eagle Fuels station is the Shell gas station, located at 5989 E. Main St., where 31-yearold Brandon Clark, of the Far West Side, was shot on Jan. 22.
Clark and Nehemiah Martin, 31, are believed to have gotten into an altercation around 8 p.m. that night, leading to the shooting. Clark died at a nearby hospital.
And just two miles the street from the Eagle Fuels station is the Shell gas station at 1937 E. Livingston Ave. where 28year-old Cortez Townsend was fatally shot on Nov. 27, 2020.
Klein’s office has been zealous in obtaining injunctions against mostly residential properties and some businesses plagued by a host of drugs and violent crimes.
On Wednesday, the city boarded up three properties connected to drug activity in different areas of the city, bringing the total number of properties the city has shuttered in 2021 to 14.
The three properties — 1036 Bellows Ave. in Franklinton; 72 North Terrace Ave. on the West Side; and 691 S. Hampton Road on the East Side— were boarded up after the city attorney’s office obtained an emergency order Tuesday from Franklin County Environmental Court, a specialized court created to streamline oversight and adjudication of housing code violations and nuisance properties.
Klein’s office said in a press release that his office is on pace to more than double the number of drug-related nuisance cases his office filed in 2020. Last year, the city obtained injunctions against 29 residential properties and nine commercial properties.
Klein said the locations the city boarded up on Wednesday are examples of the long process to build a case.
According to court records, the house at 1036 Bellows Ave. was the site of multiple drug complaints, instances of gun violence and other conduct since late 2019.
Police responded more than two dozen times to the home at 72 N. Terrace Ave. in the last two years. Among the reported crimes was the theft of the homeowner’s dog. elagatta@dispatch.com @Ericlagatta bbruner@dispatch.com @bethany_bruner mferench@dispatch.com @Markferenchik jfutty@dispatch.com @johnfutty
I am saddened and troubled by the censorship of writers and famous people who have held racist and discriminatory views in the past. I fully understand we cannot promote views or stereotypes that portray people in a negative light.
It is understood that discriminatory beliefs may have been acceptable in the past but now are found to be unacceptable.
It is human nature that all people have done good and bad things in their life; no one is perfect. My fear is that we will negate the good things people have done due to archaic values and mores that are not acceptable by today’s standards.
Twelve presidents owned slaves, Henry Ford was anti-semitic, Shakespeare’s writings were racist, antisemitic and sexist. Even the Bible said slaves were to honor their masters.
There must be some way we can honor great people and still negate the racist and discriminatory views they once held. I personally loved Dr. Seuss and his books and find the good overrides the bad, said Sam I am.
Doug Smith, Gahanna
A local cheesecake company will be the first rotating vendor at Budd Dairy Food Hall in Italian Village later this spring.
The Cheesecake Girl will be the first to occupy an incubation kitchen called the “Hatch,” which offers a new vendor every few months. The Hatch opens April 6 when the food hall welcomes customers for the first time. The bakery plans to stay until July.
Cheesecake Girl owner Samantha Strange wants to give her company a presence in a neighborhood adjacent to Downtown. The company started as a catering business in 2017 operating out of the Sunny Street Cafe, which has three locations in central Ohio.
The dessert bakery opened its first standalone location at the Center Street Market in Hilliard last year, and plans to open a second location in Dublin this year.
Strange caters weddings and offers her products at farmers markets.
The company sells full cheesecakes, individual slices and mini-cheesecake “shooters.”
When customers taste her products, Strange wants them to think of the desserts that families make themselves and serve at the dinner table.
“I actually didn’t have much professional culinary training when I opened,” she said. “My goal was to make homemade comfort dessert, so when you eat it, you’re taken back.”
The menu includes cheesecakes that riff on classic desserts such as pe
a weird parallel to last year, but also a lot of the same struggles, like running out of financing and trying to figure out a way to keep everything moving.”
It sounds like that sensation will continue to roll through 2021 and beyond. In addition to the newly expanded space, the Facebook post also teased that there was even more news to come (”Can you guess where we’re going next?!”).
UPDATE: Renda said the first phase of the expansion, encompassing an additional 10,000 square feet of new exhibits, as well as the concert space, will likely open in the first quarter of 2022. “From that point, we’d continue opening new rooms every couple of months until we run out of space,” he said in an email. In the interim, Otherworld will continue to host concerts in its existing space, with bookings currently being made for October.