Training explores how police fit into plan for safer downtown
Consulting group to help build better relationships between Norfolk officials, businesses
NORFOLK — Sometimes, where you’re seated at the table can make all the difference.
When a city code enforcement officer meets with a business owner, sitting across from one another can set up an oppositional relationship. But taking a seat on the same side of the table can signal a willingness to collaborate. That’s how Bill Mellon, zoning team leader for Norfolk’s recently formed Business Compliance Unit, explains it.
Mellon gained this insight at a training session last month by Safe Night Inc., a consultant group hired by the Downtown Norfolk Council to build new relationships with downtown businesses, to help them succeed and reduce crime in the area. Subtle changes like this, based on evidence-based theory laid out by Safe Night co-founder Molly Mastoras, fit into a larger picture of how city regulators plan to interact with business owners going forward.
City officials said much of Safe Night’s guidance is in line with things they’re already doing. The voluntary Gold Bar accreditation model will not replace any of the city’s existing code enforcement processes but will complement them, according to fellow Safe Night co-founder Jim Mastoras.
Norfolk police have employed community policing strategies for years, said Lt. Chad Lee, who oversees four sergeants and their downtown units. But Lee said applying those concepts to interactions with businesses is new territory.
“We have, and still employ, some of the strategies discussed,” Lee said, “but not as in-depth and on a consistent long-term basis as the Safe Night concept.”
Safe Night’s training program, Proactive Alliance, teaches officers a new way to interact with people on the street. For example, engaging people in personal conversations and being approachable is preferred over standing together in a clump — which Molly Mastoras said can be intimidating.
They’re taught how to build better awareness of their impact on the communities they serve so they can be “agents of change.”
“An officer’s individuality, along with effective communication skills, can elicit transformation not only in the community, but also in officers themselves, given that the proactive stance may contribute to a sense of empowerment and control,” reads an article co-written by Molly Mastoras in the Journal of Community Safety & Well-Being.
The training program teaches concepts such as unconditional positive regard, productive empathy and responsive collaboration, but Molly Mastoras said understanding the psychological side isn’t a prerequisite to putting them into practice.
“The metaphor we often use is, ‘I built the car ... you just need to know how to drive it,’ ” she said. “The whole point is, when you’re thinking about your self awareness, I wanted to give them some tools to think about that, some structure because if you say, ‘go become self-aware’ — what the heck? How do you do that?”
The Business Compliance Unit was formed in 2022 after City Council the prior year identified challenges on the horizon for regulators — short-term rentals, the possible legal sale of cannabis and gaming machines — and wanted to bring in staff with the people skills needed to help businesses navigate this new territory, Mellon explained.
Mellon said Safe Night reinforced some BCU practices such as their site inspection sheet, which documents both positive and negative findings during site visits. Engaging with businesses in this way is part of an effort to ease owners’ concerns that city regulators are just looking to shut them down, which Mellon said was a common fear in the wake of the crackdown on nightlife businesses following several high-profile shootings downtown — including one in August that injured four people outside Legacy Restaurant & Lounge.
“The city is not going to shut you down if you have to go reapply for anything but if there’s a history of noncompliance ... and it’s led to some serious safety issues, that’s a different story,” Mellon said.
While the fire marshal’s office won’t need to change its day-to-day operations in response to Safe Night’s training, Norfolk Fire & Rescue Battalion Chief Nicholas Nelson said, the approach has not been tried before in the city — at least “not with the same focus and attention to detail.”
Nelson said all Fire Marshal officers will be trained on the concepts.
“Anytime we can improve our communications with the local businesses, it’s a good thing. It is possible and
I feel we are making progress,” Nelson said. “One of the points stressed was: this didn’t happen overnight; it won’t be fixed overnight.”
Nelson said the training highlighted empathy and understanding, which he has been reemphasizing with his team and “encouraging them to be mindful of the needs of the businesses, as well as the need for safety.”
“It is our job to balance that and listen to the business owners, managers and staff,” Nelson said. “We need to work with them to ensure Norfolk has a safe, userfriendly nightlife.”
The next step for these agencies is to take the concepts back to their staffs and train them. The city staff who participated in Safe Night’s training have not yet formally presented the information to their respective teams, according to city spokesperson Chris Jones, but there have been “informal discussions of best practices.” Jones said the planning department’s “overall stance” is that the BCU’s approach is very similar to Safe Night’s, “so there’s already a decent level of overlap.”
Jim Mastoras called Norfolk “an absolute poster-child for wanting change.”
“We’re not here because we solicited our way in, they came to us,” he said. “It’s them saying, ‘We want some help, we want to do this in the best way possible.’ ”
Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, gavin.stone @virginiamedia.com