BALTIMORE — Crime in the Black Wall Street community seems to be getting worse according to some business owners in the area.
Now they’re calling on city leaders to help change the narrative and WMAR took their concerns to our elected officials.
Vandalisms, break-ins, and crime in general has been an issue for some business owners in the Black Wall Street community.
Adetutu Anifowoshe is one of them who’s experienced turmoil in her establishment. Tutu is a business owner of a Subway franchise in the Black Wall Street community at the corner of St. Paul and East 25th Street sits one of two of her current locations.
The other is by Fort McHenry, but she said it’s the one along East 25th Street in the Black Wall Street community that’s had the most issues when it comes to crime.
“I’ve been here for close to 32 years. Yes break-ins, people coming in and trying to hold us up. Nobody wants to work somewhere where they have to be scared whether somebody’s going to come in and rob them,” Tutu said.
Her subway location in Black Wall Street has been held up at least four times within the past few years, the most recent happening in September of this year. Many of the business owners in the community believe if their establishments were located a more affluent neighborhood, the public safety and economic development response would be different.
This year there have been more than two dozen robberies in the area, half of them commercial robberies. Neighboring business owners like Chef Tee who owns Terra Café also have had issues. WMAR showed you previously when he too had his business vandalized back in August.
“It's really crazy. Since the last time I've interviewed with you shortly after that, we had another three, four incidents,” Chef Tee said.
Both businesses are just two of many in the area where the same issue persists, and they believe if they were in a more affluent part of the city the urgency to find solutions and response from city leaders would be different.
“If it was in Bolton Hill, or Federal Hill, or Fells Point or Canton, you know, you would get the full, you will get the whole ride. You would get your council people out here you will get the city that shows concern,” Chef Tee said.
WMAR asked elected officials how do they begin to help change that narrative for this community. City council president Nick Mosby said it starts with addressing public safety.
“Our small businesses shouldn’t be worried about public safety or vandalism and stuff like that so that is very concerning. A year or two ago we did work with Black businesses around the city on disproportionate amount of enforcement from a code enforcement perspective, and trying to work with the administration to ensure that there was a level of equity there. So we’ll look to do the same thing with this particularly as it relates to our police department,” Mosby said.
Making sure public safety needs are being met was one suggestion by city council president Mosby towards a solution, it’s something councilman Robert Stokes, who oversees the district, said he’s been advocating for along with helping to further develop the community.
“What we need to do is sit down with Baltimore development corporation to see how they can help the small businesses in the city. We have to put more resources in the African American communities because that’s where most of our crime is,” Stokes said.
And business owners are optimistic now that since city leaders have been made aware of their issues they’ll receive a different level of concern to help them find solutions.
“There’s quite a few abandoned buildings. I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done about them,” Tutu said.
“It is important for us to fix this problem together or guess what we’re going to go down together,” Chef Tee said.
This continues a broader complex conversation that will take time to work through. However, the questions business owners said remains is when will historically disenfranchised communities like these get the attention they deserve.
