AUSTIN (KXAN) — New survey results show downtown business owners are concerned about protecting their property against theft or damage.
This comes as the Austin Police Department has released new crime data showing a spike in burglaries downtown over the past two months.
According to the Downtown Austin Alliance, more than 35% of business owners said one of their top concerns during the pandemic was their property being broken into, looted or damaged. This concern ranked only behind financial concerns of an overall inability to pay rent, lease or mortgage and inability to pay employees, respectively.
Over the past several weeks, its something that downtown non-residences have experienced first-hand.
According to crime data released from APD’s commercial burglary analyst and crime intelligence analyst supervisor, all burglaries across the entire city are at its lowest since 2016. In that year, from Jan. 1 through April 17, there were 1,572 burglaries of residences, non-residence and non-residence sheds, over 500 more than 2020.
However, when specifically targeting the downtown sector by year, there is a spike of non-residence burglaries immediately following March 25, 2020: the date when Austin and Travis County’s stay-at-home order went into effect.
The spike brings the total downtown burglaries for 2020 second only to 2019.
The Austin Police Department said officers have been patrolling the downtown sector as normal during the pandemic. There has been no significant change in the impact of homelessness downtown, a spokesperson reported.
The police department suggests owners invest in alarms and high quality video surveillance systems to keep properties safe. As always, they encourage business owners to file a report if they believe a crime has been committed.
For some business owners, they just want to see the downtown sector return to normal operations.
Marc Roppolo, owner of Roppolo’s Pizzaria, a food staple on 6th Street for more than 30 years, said he was surprised to see his West Campus location trashed Tuesday morning.
“First thing I thought was that someone had broken into my building,” Roppolo said. “When people get desperate, they are going to bust in windows, go inside, steal things. It could come from anyone, anywhere.”
But Roppolo said this pandemic can be turned into an opportunity for a revitalization downtown for both businesses and the police force.
“We want to bring 6th Street back to a great street again,” Roppolo said. “This is the perfect opportunity for APD to change with the rebirth of 6th Street. Have police patrol the area and no longer be on the corner of 6th and Trinity where there is usually 30 to 40 officers.”
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