The City of
Rochester’s nuisance points system could be a vital tool to help the Beechwood
neighborhood in its prolonged fight against problem mini markets, says Kyle
Crandall, president of the Beechwood Neighborhood Coalition. But city officials
are not using it the way they could and should be, he says.
Businesses receive
nuisance points for violations of the law and the municipal code; the number of
points depends on the severity of the violation. Too many points in a set time
period means that the business is at risk of being shut down by the city.
Some of the mini
markets in city neighborhoods are magnets for trouble, such as drug dealing and
food-stamp fraud.
“Unfortunately, in
my 17 years living in the neighborhood, I have never seen any of the mini
markets in Beechwood close due to the nuisance points system, when we’ve had
several that should have,” Crandall says. “Right now, we see it as a tool that
could work, but we see it as a broken system when it’s, for whatever reason,
not enforced.”
Rochester Mayor
Lovely Warren said at a meeting of the Beechwood Neighborhood Coalition on Thursday night that she’s not aware of any mini markets in Beechwood that currently have
enough points to be shut down.
City attorney Brian
Curran, while not speaking directly about the situation in Beechwood, says that
people often misunderstand how the nuisance points system works as well as its
intent, which is to reform and abate, not to punish.
The City of
Rochester is poised to hire a consultant to review the nuisance points system.
This month, City Council will weigh legislation to pay Rochester-based
Strategic Community Intervention a maximum of $63,887 to identify best
practices to address public nuisances, and to help the city make sure that the
nuisance points program is equitable and efficient. The review will also
analyze and compare similar processes throughout the state.
The number of points a business gets
for each violation is spelled out in the city code. A business gets six points
for gambling offenses or food-stamp fraud, for example, four points for
exceeding occupancy limits, and three points for littering.
Once a business
receives either 12 points in a six-month period or 18
points in a year, a legal proceeding can get under way to close the business
down. The property owner can contest the charges at a hearing, and the
commissioner of neighborhood and business development makes the ultimate
decision on whether or not the business can keep operating, based on the
recommendation of a hearing officer.
“I think it’s an
effective tool generally to deal with the most problematic properties,” Curran
says. “Whether it really addresses the concerns the neighborhoods have about
some of the mini marts, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to address all of the
concerns, so it may well be that we need to look at other ways to address those
concerns.”
Critics of the
process say that points aren’t applied fairly across the city; the points are
assigned by each quadrant’s Neighborhood Service Center, and critics say that
the centers have different standards. That’s one of the reasons for the pending
review, Curran says, to see if that’s true.
The city would also
like to expedite the process, he says, by setting a regular date for the
hearings.
People have to
remember that the purpose of the law is to abate nuisances, he says; it’s not a
criminal investigation designed to bring someone down. And some people see
certain activities, like youth hanging out in front of a store, and assume that
something illegal is going on, Curran says. But to close a business is a fairly
drastic action, he says, and you need more than anecdotal evidence.
Many business owners
are just as eager as the city to address problems at their stores, he says.
Beechwood is saturated with mini
markets, Crandall says, and that compels some store owners to turn to unsavory
practices such as buying food stamps or selling loose cigarettes to make money.
Beechwood has 23 mini markets.
“If we had half the
mini markets in Beechwood, then that would probably be able to supply the
demand of the neighborhood,” he says. “They’re just trying to do anything they
can to make money, which is not healthy for our neighborhood.”
It’s also a drain on
police resources, Crandall says. One mini market on Bay Street had between 125
and 150 calls for police service in a single year, he says.
Warren said last
night that the saturation question depends on how you define mini markets. If a
store sells a lot of grocery items, for example, some people don’t see it as a
mini market in the negative sense, she said.
Beechwood
has also tried, unsuccessfully, to get the city to stop approving new mini
markets in the neighborhood, something that Warren said that the city does not
have the power to do.
The city’s strategy
had been to limit the number of so-called “high impact” items a mini market can
sell. These items include alcohol, tobacco, and lottery tickets. But the city
learned, Warren said, that it does not have the
authority to impose those limitations.
Beechwood
resident Marion Hunte-Robinson said at Thursday’s
meeting that the city should work with the mini markets to understand their
side of the story. The owners don’t want people selling drugs outside their
stores, either, she said, by way of example, and residents don’t necessarily
want the store closed, leaving another vacant building in Beechwood.
This article appears in Jan 6-12, 2016.
