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Ybor merchants split on street decision

Police and some Seventh Avenue retailers applaud the results. Others say car traffic has hurt their business.

By RICK GERSHMAN
Published May 19, 2006

YBOR CITY - Was opening Seventh Avenue to vehicle traffic on weekend nights the right decision?

That depends on whom you ask.

Tampa police champion last fall's reopening, pointing to statistics that show crime is down. But some retail owners claim business has soured, and some locals think moving the party to the sidewalk has created its own headaches.

Wilbert Selochan, 48, owner of the adult novelties store Kicks, said he believes Friday and Saturday night retail shopping along Seventh has dropped 25 to 50 percent since the reopening about 7½ months ago:

"Most of my friends own stores here and they've seen the same,'' Selochan said.

Joey Spence, 25, a customer service representative who frequents Ybor for dancing and drinking, said she misses hanging out, literally, in the street:

"It was a special ambience you couldn't get anywhere else," she said. "And it makes no sense to take it away."

But the move also has its fans. Jeff Allen, 45 a bartender at Gaspar's Grotto, said the restaurant and bar's clientele has improved:

"And everybody I talk to seems to think the same thing," he said. "It definitely hasn't hurt, and it seems to have helped a little bit."

The city contended the move would reduce crime, and that's exactly what's happened, Tampa police Capt. Marc Hamlin said Monday.

He compared crime statistics in Ybor from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. Thursday through Saturday - the time frame when most clubs are open - for two periods: Jan. 1 to May 8 of 2005, when Seventh Avenue was closed, and the same period in 2006.

Thefts overall dropped from 69 in 2005 to 27 this year, he said. Simple assaults fell from 83 to 57, and thefts from buildings fell from 33 to 11.

"As far as we're concerned statistically, crime is down dramatically, and Thursday, Friday and Saturday crime is down tremendously,'' Hamlin said.

Not everyone agrees that Ybor is safer with pedestrians confined to the sidewalks. Nicole McKinzie, a manager at Blue Devil Tattoo Gallery, said "every business owner I've talked to" was against the closing.

"We hate it - the sidewalks are very congested," said McKinzie, 28. "It crowds everybody together, and a lot of those people are intoxicated, and they're bumping into each other. I think the violence out here has become ridiculous lately.''

So why don't the businesses rally together to ask for a change?

"We don't know who to talk to,'' she said.

Gino Genovisi, 27, a piercer at Blue Devil, said he's seen a lot more "shoulder checks" on the sidewalks - guys refusing to make room for each other, getting into scuffles.

"The idea was to keep the kids and the teenagers off the streets, but now they're on the sidewalks,'' he said.

McKinzie said she often has seen people running from fights, knocking into people on the crowded sidewalks. That wasn't a problem when the street was open, she said.

But the Tampa Police Department's Hamlin said those concerns aren't borne out in what officers have witnessed on the streets.

"One specific incident in front of a business can make people very concerned," he said. "The perception of crime and the fear of crime - no one's been able to come up with a measure for that."

But crime definitely is down, he said, and his officers have not found sidewalk congestion to be a serious problem.

"There's a certain area we were concerned about between 16th and 17th streets where there are several clubs in a row," he said. "But it turned out to be just the opposite - it's been fine. And I've had no one in particular complaining" about crowded sidewalks.

Allen, the bartender at Gaspar's, has no complaints. Though, he said, the bar seems to do slightly less business on weekend nights since the reopening, the quality of customers has greatly improved.

"The easiest way to say it is it keeps the hoodlums out of the neighborhood," Allen said. "We don't get as many people but the clientele's a hell of a lot better. It's the kind of people we want in here.''

Meaning people who spend money and don't cause trouble?

"Exactly.''

As for crowded sidewalks, "at first I thought it was going to be a problem, but it really hasn't turned out that way."

But that's no comfort to Denis Gashi, who has owned and run New York, New York Pizza Bar for about 18 months.

"When we opened, business was good," Gashi said. "People could cross the street. But it's too hard now. People don't walk around. Now business is very bad for us. It's dropped off probably 20 percent.

"Every businessman I know, everyone thinks the idea was bad for everybody.''

Gashi said his dine-in business particularly has suffered, "so now I do more delivery stuff to pay the bills.''

And he doesn't buy the notion that the street opening was a necessary tool to curb crime: "Crime is everywhere, not just in Ybor.''

To some, the street reopening hasn't made business bad or worse. Just different.

Skip Sampson is a tattoo artist at Monique's Tattooing & Body Piercing. He runs the shop with Dee McKinzie, Nicole McKinzie's husband.

"We get 30 to 40 people in here a night, all night long, regardless,'' Sampson said. "That hasn't changed in the nine years we've been there."

Sampson's biggest concern isn't with Seventh Avenue at night, but by day: "I think we need speed bumps," he said.

"Somebody's going to get hit. I've seen people going 60 mph out there during the day. They don't pay any attention to the crosswalks.''

But Selochan, the owner of Kicks, said reopening the street keeps people from bouncing from shop to shop, popping in and out.

Having to cross through traffic - both across Seventh and intersecting streets - restricts potential walk-up customers.

"People are worried about traffic,'' he said.

Throughout the Seventh Avenue stretch, Selochan said, "shopping has definitely has decreased. You cannot stay alive down here if people can't shop.''

Rick Gershman can be reached at rgershman@sptimes.com or 226-3431.

[Last modified May 18, 2006, 11:52:48]