A public safety matter

Despite repeated complaints about a North Avenue liquor store, a closure notice by Baltimore's liquor board and a weekend homicide at the establishment, Linden Bar and Liquors remained open for business ...

[Joe Momma]

The business is not the "public nuisance" here.

It is the human refuse that is allowed to congregate in or adjacent to the business.

Post a patrol car near that location for a brief while and the problems being associated with the store will quickly relocate.

Count on it!

[Frank]

The whole city is a "magnet for drug dealing and violence".

These politicians needs to think seriously about the issues in their city. If they want to use this incident as an example of an overall issue (which the legislators refuse to address on a city-wide basis) then that's fine. But call a spade a spade.

[Concerned citizen]

I have to agree with the comments. The real problem here is the city's inability to get a handle on its horrendous drug problem and the violence that stems from that. No matter how many neighborhoods get gentrified, until there is a comprehensive plan to rid this city of drugs, Baltimore is doomed to fail.

[Anna]

Mr Yim is not responsible for the dirtbags and human trash that resides in this area. If the store is closed, there will just be drug sales and shootings in the street in front of the vacant, grafitti-littered building. If the community would express half as much time policing their own neighborhood as they do blaming businesses and the county for their human trash, it might get cleaned up. If the boys momma had smacked his butt and made him pay the consequences for buying/selling drugs--the kids would not be shooting eachother. If his daddy helped him with his schoolwork and played ball with him after school, he would not be prowling the liquor stores in the evenings--he would be at home or working like a good citizen. This is not a business owner or government problem--this is a parental problem. These parrents ought to be ashamed of the children they are breeding--because they sure as heck are not "raising" them.

[flyingcow]

The local dirtbags are
the nuisance (and worse),
not the owner of the store--
Lock up the criminals--
Baltimore is so O-V-E-R....

[Richard]

The police have repeated posted patrol cars, foot patrols and plain clothed officers there. That helps for a moment. I agree it is the refuse that is allowed to congregate there. But, the owner has done nothing to help the situation and refuses to act responsibly

[Bull From The Sun Editors]

The fact is that the business owner was doing his best to control the problem but no matter what he did, the moralist mob would want more. Why should he have to close his business that he was worked years to build? I could understand if he were doing something illegal, but it is the mob of thugs that were acting illegally. So instead of punishing the thugs, the Sun proposes that a man be stripped of his right to own his business and, worse yet, to do so in a summary fashion. The judge weighed the evidence at the preliminary injunction hearing and the City didn't meet its burden. What next, just create a presumption that the City can summarily close a business without any right of due process? Then what? Tell the owner that the CIty is sorry when it can't meet its burden of proof after they have bankrupted the business?
Deal with the criminal element and leave the business owner alone.

[Concerned citizen]

I hope someone from the Mayor's office prints these comments out for her to read. It really shows the reality of the dire situation in Baltimore. All you have to do is walk down any of these streets to see how people treat each other to know where the problem lies. There is no respect for elders, no respect for community, no respect for women, and no respect for the law. The parents are very much to blame...they are the same ones that were upset a few weeks ago that they had to go and pick up their 10 year olds at 3 AM in the city's curfew center. I mean for God's sake, didn't they even notice their 10 year old wasn't home and in bed!! The real solution is going to be for these communities to pick themselves up and straighten out their lives. Nothing else is going to work. You can arrest all you want, but until these kids have fathers and mothers that are role models, nothing is going to change.

[Number Six]

It's funny. After reading all of these comments so far, many people seem to get what the problem in Baltimore is all about. The fault lies in a lack of parenting. Too often there is no father in the household, which is probaly the worst thing for a boy. He's looking for someone to look up to, to immitate, and to discipline him. He needs a strong hand.

But, that being said, the other problem is that our elected leaders are at a loss as what to do about the problem. Rather than place blame where it eventually belongs and punish the offender, and thus protecting the populace, they choose to infringe on the law abiding people. The Sun is complicit in this, often taking a soft view of the law breaker rather than compassion for those who have been injured. You see, it's easier to attack and blame those who are innocent, they are less likely to fight back, they have shown no inclination to do anyone any injury. They have been been pacified.

Drug dealers hang out at a liquor store and shoot someone, close the liquor store, take away guns from everyone. Criminals wear bullet proof vest during a crime, ban everyone from owning a bullet proof vest.(Who needs one in Baltimore, anyway?)

Rather than take a hard line, which is something a lot of these criminals need, even want, the people who run this city and state feel that we just need to be compassionate towards those who have made a mistake.

It's time we elected some people who understand that criminals need to do some time rather than be understood and forgiven. Once they'ev done their time, then we can talk about forgiveness.

But go ahead Baltimore, keep electing these same types of people and hope for change, it isn't going to happen.

[Lenn Sakata]

Lenn Sakata thinks this "lack of parenting" rhetoric is, indeed, in some ways very true... but it is also a fine excuse for petulant, self-serving outsiders to say "I told you so" without offering anything of substance toward resolving the situation. How does, for instance, Anna from Belcamp know about what this community has done to police its own neighborhood? In fact, they do quite a bit, Miss Anna Banana! You base your criticisms off one column without researching the neighborhood or even visiting the neighborhood in question to know what you're talking about!

Lenn Sakata says, "Okay. So, it's the bad parenting. Then, what is your solution? That they become better parents? How? Tell us with your absolute wisdom, how we make them better parents? Do we lock anyone up who doesn't raise their children in the manner that you believe is the proper way of parenting?" Complain all you want, says Lenn Sakata, but you are offering nothing toward resolving the problem. In fact, it is your myopic support for anything that has to do with "business" that is the problem. Please, says Lenn Sakata, stay out of Baltimore's A_S_S.

[Surf52]

Lenn Sakata wrote:

Lenn Sakata thinks this "lack of parenting" rhetoric is, indeed, in some ways very true... but it is also a fine excuse for petulant, self-serving outsiders to say "I told you so" without offering anything of substance toward resolving the situation. How does, for instance, Anna from Belcamp know about what this community has done to police its own neighborhood? In fact, they do quite a bit, Miss Anna Banana! You base your criticisms off one column without researching the neighborhood or even visiting the neighborhood in question to know what you're talking about!
Lenn Sakata says, "Okay. So, it's the bad parenting. Then, what is your solution? That they become better parents? How? Tell us with your absolute wisdom, how we make them better parents? Do we lock anyone up who doesn't raise their children in the manner that you believe is the proper way of parenting?" Complain all you want, says Lenn Sakata, but you are offering nothing toward resolving the problem. In fact, it is your myopic support for anything that has to do with "business" that is the problem. Please, says Lenn Sakata, stay out of Baltimore's A_S_S.

Since Baltimore's leadership has had no real answer to it's problems lo these many years, they're fair game. The city is fast becoming a sick joke.

[Lenn Sakata]

Lenn Sakata didn't say the leadership wasn't fair game. Lenn Sakata said that if you have nothing productive to bring to the discussion, then shut the F up! Lenn Sakata simply thinks the "good parenting" rhetoric leads no where, unless you have a solution as to how to change parenting behaviors in the midst of terrorizing gangs, poverty, and limited educational opportunities? Then, please, speak up! But, let's get rid of the "if his mother only whooped his butt when he was younger" idiocy.

[jake]

How many people here think they would be willing to volunteer a weekend to build prisons to house criminals for longer periods of time if we knew our government would actually keep them in there? sort of a habitat to save humanity deal. like habbitat for humanity builds homes for the poor. i'm willing to bet there are alot of victims in this state that would be willing to donate time.

[Concerned citizen]

You can't teach someone to be a good parent. The problem is that these pockets in the city have had the entire family unit and sense of community destroyed by drugs. And then a good number of them think it's OK to idolize music artists that have the "no-snitch" attitude, degrade women, and think killing cops is funny. So, Lenn Sakata, the community needs to do it themselves. No one can do it for them. And yes, if you are not being a good parent by getting your kids off the street, educating them, and bringing them up to be good citizens then you should be in jail.

[Lenn Sakata]

Agreed, Concerned Citizen! The COMMUNITY does need to do it themselves. And it was the COMMUNITY who lobbied that a business be closed that profits from the proliferation of drug dealers, addicts, and low-lifes, who congregate in front of his store. Don't feign ignorance to the connection between a run-down liquor store that does nothing to stop loitering and the continued drug-dealing and violence that surrounds it.

But, the libertarian rhetoric pervades when a COMMUNITY stands up for itself and tries to eliminate a cancer. The social construction of a "small businessman" (regardless of his ill intent, opportunism, and disregard for his surrounding community) remains firmly camped in a positive light by armchair ideologues.

As for your suggestion that it is yet another example of the impact of drugs, I couldn't agree more. Some families in Baltimore have 3 to 5 generations repeated afflicted by drugs.

Legalize, regulate, and educate, says Lenn Sakata.