Local Business Owners Request Beat Officer to Improve District

Although Howard Thompson, economic development director for Cleveland Heights, went door to door in the neighborhood near Noble and Nela roads to spread the word about the meeting for local businesses and residents on Wednesday, only three merchants showed up.

There are about 47 storefronts in the strip of businesses, which straddle Cleveland Heights and East Cleveland, said Stan Soble, , who has worked for years to form an association of local business owners to improve the area. He led the meeting at the to discuss revitalizing the district.

At least 10 businesses are vacant, and participation in the Noble-Nela Merchants Association that he established has dwindled, Soble said.

About 15 people were there Wednesday morning, including two police officials from each city, Thompson, Jim Kraft, who will run the new , and Marilyn Murphy, office administrator for the church.

Thompson has scheduled similar meetings for

Early in the meeting, Soble said he wants to organize a free summer festival to bring people back to the neighborhood and allow residents and merchants to mingle. Like years past, he would ask someone to dress like a clown and make balloon animals for kids, invite a school band to perform and provide food, drinks, and other entertainment, much of it donated by local businesses. 

"Each year it progressed — we had more people each year … It's a kid-based event," he said, but added that in years past they provided voter registration tables and health checks from Huron Hospital. He must raise about $2,000, he said, adding that there wasn't a festival last year because they didn't have the money. Sometimes he can use what's left from the Community Development Block Grant, which he uses primarily for snow removal, he said. 

But much of the meeting was dedicated to talking about kids loitering and juvenile crime in the area, and how to curb it.

 “I’ve seen a drastic change, especially with the kids because I’ve been cutting them for so long, with manners, it’s just totally different,” said Charles Howard, owner of on Noble Road.

He asked if the area could get a beat officer, especially in the summer when kids are out of school. 

“When there was one walking the beat, it was a whole lot better," he said. "I always respected my elders … but the new generation of kids, it’s totally different. They need to see the police face. That’s the only thing they respect. They don’t respect their peers at all, they don’t respect people that’s older than them.”

After he finished speaking, another merchant, David Bray, who owns Shillelagh Bar, simply said, "I agree with everything he just said." 

Soble and others at the meeting said an officer used to patrol the area regularly, and agreed that a consistent police presence could help.

Quintero Mack, senior investigator with the , said he has discussed the need for an officer on Noble Road with the new police chief, Jeffrey Robertson. But it's a budget and manpower issue, and there is another problem that is more difficult to address.

“Our biggest challenge, without a shadow of a doubt, is the lack of parental guidance,” Mack said. “We have so many unsupervised kids walking the streets. And that’s when we have to pool in together and try to get the parents and guardians of all these kids to take some responsibility for their kids when they’re out of school.”

“That’s where the responsibility is, and that’s where it starts.”

Officer Anthony Joiner from the East Cleveland Police Department suggested merchants take notes about suspicious activity in the area and jot down descriptions until police can get there, and noted that Coventry’s success can be at least partly attributed to its local business owners looking out for each other.

Sgt. Christopher Britton, who lives in the area and is running the , said he would push for a regular officer.

“I will express my personal concern, not only as an officer, but as a Cleveland Heights resident,” he said.

Others pitched ideas to improve the aesthetics of the area, such as planting flowers.

“The association has planted flowers, but they don’t last a week,” Soble said. “We put up lights, decorations, pots of flowers, plants, trash cans, and kids wreck havoc with it.”

Deanna Bremer Fisher, , said Heights Arts is working on a project to design posters inside vacant storefronts in Cleveland Heights, which would be protected by the windows. The artwork would not only  beautify districts, but the posters would have information about businesses that are still open in the neighborhood and directions, to signify that “there is something happening here in this district,” she said.

After more than an hour, the meeting ended, and another was scheduled for March 23 at 9 a.m. 

"It seems like merchants want to see more security in the area, and maybe they might do something about it," Soble said.