City of Dallas Shuts Down Business of Man Who Called Cops 100 Times in 20 Months

>On Wednesday, the Dallas City Council passed a "nuisance abatement" ordinance allowing Police Chief U. Renee Hall to identify properties that tolerate criminal activity and try to get the owners to address it.

A carwash shut down because it "attracted the criminal element." Not likely the proximate cause, if the owner made such an effort to run them off.

Ignoring personal rights and the legal responsibilities (or lack thereof) of the police, as a matter of public policy, this just seems to be backwards thinking.

This policy will just make poor and crime ridden areas even less attractive for commercial investment, and even more poor and crime ridden.

Think food deserts are bad? How about entire retail deserts.

> Directing businesses to hire certain security personnel with the clear suggestion that hiring these select individuals would diminish the city's threatened enforcement of nuisance abatement;

I wonder what the relationship is there. This sounds like blatant corruption and resembles the mafia demanding you pay for “protection.”

>[T]he committees are gravely concerned that the problems stemming from Dallas' use of the nuisance laws are the result of a unique and incorrect interpretation of those laws by city officials -- wrongly taking the laws to mean that fighting crime is no longer the city's responsibility but has instead now become primarily the responsibility of private citizens and businesses; and that private citizens can be held strictly liable for crimes that take place on or near their property even when they are not involved in that crime, have taken affirmative steps to prevent the crime, are themselves victims of that crime, and have reported the crime, requesting the assistance of law enforcement agencies.

I strongly recommend relocating your business.

This seems to miss the fact that in the US, the police have no legal duty whatsoever to address or prevent crime.

The fact that they shut his business down is entirely unfair, though.

The other horrible problem (also created by the government) is the slow, expensive, deliberately difficult legal system that requires hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of effort to sue the city (or anyone beyond small-claims court). Justice is only for those with tons of time and money.