Any city you go, you see plenty of folks loitering about liquor stores, and usually nothing good comes out of that. There's a liquor store in my neighborhood that operated near a subway station, and many people in the area would specifically exit certain stairways or sometimes get off at the next stop because they were tired of getting harassed, asked for money, or witnessing a fight break out. The city fixed the problem by banning panhandling and then citing / arresting people who loitered at the corner or were causing problems. It's been over a year, and there hasn't been any problems. The area was cleaned up.
In the story I've posted below, an entire business was shut down to end a problem and residents are reporting improvements.
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/...aspx?id=185227
The closed store will be demolished by the city
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=West+M...220.19,,0,1.58
So how big of a problem is this in Detroit? Does it affect quality of life in your neighborhood? Would you like to see the city close businesses where people congregate outside and cause problems?
I would think the minor losses in tax revenue would be substantially outweighed by gains in safety.
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