A coalition of community leaders in Benton Harbor is pledging to fight violent crime in the community.
The group held a press conference Tuesday to announce their new efforts, which will include stamping out illegal late-night block parties in the parking lots of Benton Township businesses. However, some of those businesses are hoping for a change sooner rather than later.
Scott Schonschack owns Art and Image, one of the sites of illegal late night block parties recently. He told us addressing crime in the community starts with morals.
“If it moves from here to another location, and even if it is broken up, throw people in jail and think the problem is going to go away? That’s not the solution,” Schonschack said. “I don’t agree with that, either. I was raised that nothing good happens after midnight. So, is there something proactive going backwards? You’re going to have to have parents that step it up and raise their children correctly.”
A particular problem area has been along Napier Avenue, in the vicinity of New York Fried Chicken. Since the owner was not in at the time, WSJM talked with the acting manager of New York Fried Chicken. He told us the business does not condone any of these parties, nor do they know anything about them.
The manager said the business has tried to work with the township and suggested bringing back the drive-thru could help eliminate the problem.
“We’d be trying to follow the township’s code to keep us from getting shut down,” the manager said. “We’ve got signs up that said Delivery Only. That’s what that means after 2 a.m. The only problem we had was this bad sign.”
According to New York Fried Chicken, this past weekend’s gathering was the last big party that was planned.
We at the radio stations have surveillance footage of partiers hanging around our parking lot at 4 a.m. Sunday. They left behind quite the mess.
