GREENSBORO, N.C. — Just within the past month, dozens of crimes, mostly robberies, have taken place off of Randleman Road in Greensboro.
Just recently, two of those incidents were shootings at two popular chain restaurants — Waffle House and McDonald’s.
Community groups and city leaders are now looking to make some changes.
WFMY News 2’s Nixon Norman spoke with the chair of the Southeastern Greensboro Coalitions, Crystal Black, who said for the past three or four years, Randleman Road has deteriorated.
She said part of the problem is that there is little accountability for property and business owners, saying that the city does little to enforce coding in this area, which in turn, has allowed more crime to take place.
Black said in order to see change, the community and city leaders need to stop talking about plans and put actual money behind solutions.
“If you let code violations exist, eventually that property starts to deteriorate and people think that you don't care. So, when you create a community that looks like you don't care, you bring in people that don't care as well about your community and that's where we are on Randleman Road,” Black said.
The city said that code violation inspections are complaint-based.
Greensboro’s Assistant City Manager, Andrea Harrell said that Randleman Road is definitely on the city’s radar and that they are working on filling vacant buildings and getting cameras put up in at multiple intersections in the area.
“A lot of times when you bring business and retail in, it pushes some of that criminal activity out, so that's on our radar. We also have already procured for three different intersections along Randleman Road. We're waiting on some permissions from NCDOT to install those but that is absolutely on our radar and something we are working on,” Harrell said.
Black feels code enforcement in the area have gotten so lax and there's little accountability for property and business owners. She said in order to cut back on crime, the city must crack down on codes.
“I think that they should be cited, and it should be recorded and after so many incidents that you're addressed, you're cited as a nuisance. The same energy that they wanted to have for bars, that our mayor and that our city council members wanted to have for bars, I think that should be across the board for all businesses. A nuisance is a nuisance,” Black said.
Harrell said that in a lot of cases where a business is becoming a nuisance, the city will try to get with the owner to put some actions in place before being declared a nuisance. She said they’ve already had to intervene with one business. That business put cameras out, and things got better according to Harrell.
“Once your location has a significant increase in criminal activity, the city does have the ability to file what's called a nuisance abatement lawsuit. That is something that we do not take lightly but since I have been with the city, I can from the city attorney's office, I prosecuted three of those cases myself, got businesses closed that were causing the city attorney real problem and there are some on our radar now for nuisance abatement as well,” Harrell said.
She also said that starting immediately, due to the situations at both Waffle House and McDonald’s more police will be patrolling the area.