Gerrard Spaghetti and Pizza House is a beloved Danforth institution, and Vito Greco has the trophy to prove it.

Greco’s family has been slinging dough at the restaurant since 1976, and last month the Danforth East Community Association crowned it the neighbourhood’s favourite “hidden gem.” In a ceremony that drew a crowd of neighbourhood-boosting locals, DECA presented Greco with a trophy and awarded him a free makeover for his pizza parlour.

Being honoured by his community was wonderful feeling, Greco says, but just five days later it was “a whole different ballgame.” In the early morning of May 19, the front window of his business was smashed — collateral damage in an incident where a man fatally shot outside a hookah lounge two doors down.

The “hidden gem” ceremony and the murder of 21-year-old Abdiweli Mohamed Yusuf sum up conflicting forces at work in the Danforth East neighbourhood. Even as it undergoes a community-driven revitalization, the area has been plagued by a shocking number of murders over the past two years.

Since September 2013, at least 10 people have been killed in a 3-kilometre stretch of the Danforth corridor between Greenwood Ave. and Dawes Rd.

The killings have included an incident at a McDonald’s in February in which an off-duty security guard shot two men, as well the fatal 2013 stabbing of a firefighter at the Rotana Café, the same spot where Yusuf was killed. The multiple deaths, which police say are unrelated, have baffled community leaders, and prompted area councillors Mary Fragedakis (open Mary Fragedakis's policard) and Paula Fletcher (open Paula Fletcher's policard) to call a meeting on neighbourhood safety Tuesday night.

“I don’t see this as indicative of what’s going on in the neighbourhood. We’re a neighbourhood that is growing, that is really improving,” Billy Dertilis, the owner of Red Rocket Coffee and chair of the Danforth Mosaic Business Improvement Area, said in an interview.

He says the strip, which for years was blighted by empty storefronts, has seen about a dozen “new, really exciting shops moving in.”

They include the kind of trendy establishments that usually signal a neighbourhood on the upswing, like the Sweet Serendipity Bake Shop, where shoppers can buy house-made wild-blueberry scones, and the Wren, a family-friendly hipster bar that keeps 12 Ontario craft brews on tap.

DECA chair Sheri Hebdon says she “wouldn’t presume to know” what’s causing the murders.

“It doesn’t make sense, because we have more businesses opening, we have more people on the Danforth,” she said. Her group has been a major driver of the revitalization, arranging for pop-up businesses to take over empty storefronts and launching a “shop local” campaign.

But despite the recent gains, Hebdon admits that “the Danforth changes when the sun goes down.” A few “sketchy” bars, some of them holdouts from before the revitalization began, attract rowdy clientele.

Some other locals believe the crime is instigated by outsiders attracted to the neighbourhood’s growing nightlife.

That theory is corroborated by Toronto police Staff Sgt. George Mullin, community response unit manager for 54 Division. “Lately there has been a lot of non-community members attending the Danforth, which seems to be causing some concerns,” he said.

Mullin says the division is keeping a particularly close eye on sheesha, or hookah, lounges, of which there are more than half a dozen in the area. He says places like Rotana (which since Yusuf’s murder has been renamed Cloud Nine Café) draw large crowds of young people who can cause disturbances. “These clubs are becoming a pain for the people that live above them and around them,” he said.

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But Mustapha Hammi, owner of the Arabian Nights hookah bar, says his business hasn’t caused any problems since he opened about a year ago. He says that he doesn’t tolerate any misbehaviour from customers, and deters younger patrons by giving them bad service until they get the message and go somewhere else.

“I keep myself clean. Nothing to hide,” Hammi said.

A Moroccan immigrant who came to Canada when he was 18, Hammi is part of a wider African diaspora that has been establishing itself on the Danforth for at least a decade. African businesses, particularly Ethiopian and Eritrean bars, restaurants and hookah lounges, now dot the strip east of Greenwood.

Dertilis, the business association chair, says some veteran Danforth business owners have privately told him they believe the African businesses are attracting crime. But Dertilis is adamant that “we have to stay away from such simplistic reasoning.” He points that east African businesses came to the area long before the murders began.

Samuel Getachew argues the area should be proud of its Ethiopian connection. An Ethiopian-Canadian activist who in 2009 launched a campaign to rebrand part of the Danforth as “Little Ethiopia,” he says the neighbourhood was a “dead area” before East African entrepreneurs set up shop.

Anyone who would blame them for the spate of murders is “just afraid of what’s new,” he said. “And they neglect the contributions these new people have brought to the area.”

Clarification – June 17, 2015: This article was edited from a previous version to make clear that Sheri Hebdon did not state that she believes crime in the neighbourhood is instigated by outsiders attracted to the neighbourhood’s growing nightlife.