Here is a man passed out in the alleyway with the heroin needle still sticking out of his arm as I left work.
Here is the big hole in the fence from where the firefighters cut the fence to put out the fire that burned half of this lot.
Here is the pile of glass that greeted me when I went to work. I had to spend the first half hour of my day sweeping it up so that I could drive into my parking lot.
This is the debris from fire number 6 mentioned above.
Additional Observations of this Local Business Owner:
Today we had the 6th fire in a small area. Yes, I said 6th. They were all started by transients. The first one was against a vacant building on the corner. The next day, the second one burned about half of a vacant lot down our alleyway. It is a 1/3 acre lot. You can imagine how dangerous a fire like that is to the buildings that are up against that property. I will include a picture of it. The third and 4th were smaller and in different areas in the parking lot south of us that caught weeds and debris on fire. The 5th one was a cooking fire up against an enormous tree that caught the tree on fire. The fire department had to cut out about 1 foot into the tree at the base to make sure the fire was out. Number 6 was today, a transient with 5 carts of random “belongings” accidentally caught his stuff on fire, and kicked it around the whole parking lot. I worry about our safety, and the safety of my beautiful salon when there are constant fires happening next to us.
We had to call the police 10 times in an 12 day period. A group of transients moved into our alleyway. I told them they need to leave, and can’t set up blocking the road, since we need to be able to drive into our parking lot. Ever since then, when we drive by, they yell at us and threaten us. We have had to see the woman, and one of the men fully exposed. My partner and I have had to deal with repeated anti-gay slurs, and we wish we could feel safe driving down our alleyway.
The police have told them to leave 4 or 5 times, but they just leave for a couple hours, then come back. One of them was arrested, and the cops said she wouldn’t be a problem anymore, but she was back the next day, and continues to be a problem.
Michelle Hoon and the SLC mobile app have become inefficient again. There were 3 piles of feces and dozens of shot needles down the alleyway that we reported, they didn’t make it out to take care of it for 2 weeks. By then the transients had shoveled all of that into a pile with a bunch of dirt and weeds, so it is all hidden, and was never cleaned up.
We looked into getting an alley vacation, but since there is a power line that runs down the alley, so I was told we wouldn’t succeed in getting it. Do you have any other suggestions on things we can do?
We would love for the city to give us more support in handling the challenges we are experiencing, and wholeheartedly wish the administration would take a more hands-on approach to the issues that keep us up at night. If the city can start to prosecute illegal activities like public nudity, drug use, etc then maybe we can feel safe at our business again.
As an update: While I was typing this email, one of my stylists called to say that there is another pile of belongings on fire in the parking lot. While she was waiting for our gate to close, the woman at the camp was screaming obscenities at her and telling her to keep going, while flipping her off.