Frustrated business owners are calling on city and county leaders to do more to combat rising property crime in Portland
Sarah Shaoul is a business coach and founder of the advocacy group Bricks Need Mortar.
Portland business owners have to make it or break it when it comes to holidays.
Data from the Portland Police Bureau shows that property crime in Portland rose between January and October of this year.
Hundreds of cases have been dropped because of the lack of public defenders. She said she's sick of the opportunist criminals who break into businesses and vandalize them.
She thinks it's time to do something about people backing their vehicles into businesses.
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The owner of event cosmetics said that entrepreneurs are fighting an uphill battle to stay in business.
Everyone's safety is a priority. A lot of the surrounding areas don't feel safe to go downtown.
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Sealy and other business owners said they would like to see more law enforcement officers in the city.
"We would like to see a bigger police presence in protecting our small business of storefronts." Police should show up in a timely manner to these calls.
According to PPB data, police response times have not been seen in at least a decade, with the average high priority call waiting more than 20 minutes for a response in October. The average wait for medium-priority callers was more than 50 minutes.
PPB says that many factors can affect response times, including travel time, the number of calls and staffing levels.
The city should look at other resources if the police aren't available. Over a year ago, we made a recommendation that we have patrols that are out shining lights.
The Portland Bureau of Transportation is one of the departments that could be used for such patrols.
She wants them to drive around with big lights on the sides of their vehicles. It's just preventative. Keeping an eye on these businesses to make sure they don't get broken into.
One clothing store permanently closed this year after suffering its 15th break-in, posting a note on its door that said, "Our city is in danger." Small businesses can't survive in our city's current state. There is no recourse against the criminal behavior that is not punished.
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Many business owners have closed their doors forever, and Sealy hopes that won't happen in the new year.
Sealy said that the city needed to partner with them to make sure that it wasn't just a one-sided effort.
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