Baltimore small-business owner: City must address our complaints
Crumbling sidewalks. Torn up streets perpetually under construction. Graffiti everywhere you look. Trash in alleys and accumulating around dumpsters. Homeless people sleeping on walkways. The smell of urine in doorways, with periodic signs of human and animal defecation. Drug deals going down. The aroma of marijuana hanging persistently in the air. The specter of crime around every corner.
Where am I? Karachi? San Salvador? Baghdad?
Nope, we are in my small business’ block of North Charles Street in the Downtown Business District of Baltimore City.
While the city has been suffering from slow and steady decay these many decades, some of us business and property owners retain a small glimmer of hope, remaining optimistic that “someone will do something.” We are doing our part, after all. And every election cycle, promises are made, progressive programs tried, fingers pointed and backpedaling and excuses begun.
The pandemic accelerated what had been a mostly gradual decline to the equivalent of jumping off a cliff.
We small-business owners, after contending with the overt trials of the pandemic — keeping our employees safe, healthy and employed, and attempting to continue servicing our clients, dispersed to all points of the compass — now have to contend with the void left by companies vacating their downtown offices.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and many of those spaces left by fewer office workers are now filled with folks doing illegal activities.
It is not legal to publicly urinate or defecate.
It is not legal to smoke pot on the street. It is not legal to deface private property with graffiti.
It is not legal to trespass or block walkways.
These laws were enacted for a reason. And who might an abused, tired and stressed business owner turn to for assistance?
The police? Nope, they are not dealing with these types of “nuisance” crimes any longer.
Our elected officials? Nope, the ones who actually respond are not interested in helping, other than providing unhelpful platitudes (thanks for nothing, Councilman Eric Costello). Others don’t even bother answering except with autoresponders (City Council President Nick Mosby) or maybe even no response at all (Mayor Brandon Scott).
Downtown Partnership of Baltimore does try to help, however, they can’t do everything and be everywhere. They have no legal authority to deal with the lawbreakers, and only can clean up after them, a truly thankless job.
Baltimore has the potential to be a great city. We have picturesque water areas, respected arts organizations, world class universities, proximity to major highways, access to educated employees, a relatively low cost of living when compared to other major cities — and small businesses that have been around for many years, doing their best to keep their clients happy, their employees satisfied, their taxes paid.
Our elected officials need to be more proactive in working with these business owners. And when I say “proactive,” that does not mean waiting until someone is at the end of their tether.
How difficult is it for the people we elected to run Baltimore City to recognize that, while small-business owners’ complaints might be “insignificant” or “inconsequential” to them, without us, Baltimore’s slide into ruin will continue without much resistance?