Unfortunately we had no difficulty acquiring this photo. The two hotels seen above (located where Trawick Road ends at New Bern Avenue) garner considerable police visits. Stop there for gas often and you'll see the patrol cars.
They were also the subject of two high-profile crime incidents this fall:
How many you ask? A whole lot.
773 per the City of Raleigh records provided to us.
This post is not an assertion of blame for the problem. It is however an assertion of a problem that needs review by the Raleigh City Council and the Raleigh Police Department. What would happen if this was within one block on Fayetteville Street?
Those who have lived in Raleigh for more than the past decade remember the saga with Plum Crazy and Kamikaze's and more recently with Club Envy. As this WRAL story notes:
According to Raleigh police records, officers have been called to Club Envy and its predecessor, Black Tie Nightlife, more than 200 times since January 2009 on complaints that included two shootings, five stabbings, two strong-armed robberies, one rape, one attempted rape, 31 assaults, 10 disturbances, fighting and eight reports of shots fired.
WRAL - July 6, 2010
And less than a mile up the road stands the two hotels in question with 773 calls in just one year.
While groups like Americans for Prosperity's signature Wake County issue was preserving the right of downtown alcoholics to have a beer on a sidewalk after 1 am on the weekends, there's a whole world of issues affecting the well-being of Raleigh citizens that evade them. Same with Generation Opportunity. There's a disconnect between them and the actual community where they work. A disconnect from the Alinsky they claim to teach.
I also suspect there's a lot of folks who have made residences out of these hotels that could use a bridge to well being - not a training class.
Making this area less riddled with crime would truly add more to #keepraleighvibrant. There's more to Raleigh than 1 am beers and food trucks.
Thanks to Bob Geary for pointing this out last fall.
