Manhattan businesses that employ off-duty NYPD officers due to crime
Business owners in Manhattan’s garment district have to hire their own police because of drug trafficking and racketeering.
new york – Some businesses and property owners on 8th Street between 35th Street and 38th Street in Manhattan say they are victims of what they see as a drug and homelessness problem.
Barbara Blair of the nonprofit Garment District Alliance said on some days the group’s sanitation team finds dozens of needles.
She and business owners say the problem is that retail customers and employees feel insecure, and that means less profit.
“If you have six people who look like designs, they’re all hanging out in front of your store all day, or they get into a fight and come into your store … nobody wants to go in there,” Blair said.
The Garment District Union is now working with local property owners to hire private security.
But in this case, private security means off-duty NYPD officers armed and in uniform.
“It’s unfortunate … the landlord has to pay for private duty police officers in this city with an amazing police force,” said Steve Kaufman, president of the Kaufman Organization, a real estate firm.
Kaufman’s firm is now one of three real estate companies paying about $8,000 a week for private information.
“I felt it was the best thing for our business,” Kaufman said.
Matthew Mandel, support manager at GFP Real Estate, agrees, “People felt unsafe in the area.
He said their retailers were “sending people taking drugs in front of the building… [and] Photographs of homeless people sleeping in front of their houses.”
A group of property owners told FOX 5 News that between 1 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday through Friday, a pair of hired men walk these three blocks of 8th Street — one, an off-duty police officer and the other an unarmed security guard. .
During two afternoon visits to the neighborhood, however, the FOX 5 news crew didn’t see either of the couples in action.
A homeless man named James tells us that the police and bodyguards “seem to focus all their energy on the panhandlers who are not hurting anyone.”
He said the guards and the police would tell him to “don’t stand on the curb.”
“I said it’s a free country – what do you mean I can’t stand on this block?”
That’s when he says they’re going to try to move him. But James says that he “doesn’t have to go anywhere”.
“If you don’t have a home, it’s like disappearing and dying.”
Midway through the interview with James, the Fox 5 crew standing in front of the business — the 7/11 store’s non-tenant security hire — turned up the volume dramatically on their outdoor speakers playing opera music.
Kaufman said he understands the perspective of some homeless individuals, and believes both the city’s Department of Internal Services and the NYPD are “trying.”
But business owners think the city can do more.
“I think people are choosing the streets over shelter, because the shelter system is not what it should be,” Matthew Mandel said.
Business owners report that within two months of hiring off-duty officers, it worked.
“It seems to be working very well,” says Kaufman.
“If people feel that someone is watching over things — even if they’re standing there in a police uniform,” Mandel added, “I think that makes a difference.”
Fox 5 tried to ask NYPD officials about the case during their press conference Wednesday, but were told off-topic questions would not be accepted.
Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mayor Eric Adams, said in a statement that public safety is the mayor’s top priority, but reducing crime “doesn’t happen overnight.”
He added that off-duty cops have helped New Yorkers for the past 25 years by complementing “the good work our officers do on the streets every day.”
