Downtown hotels and restaurants are often the first to hear when visitors have negative experiences. Guests leave comment cards and post on social media about street safety and unsightliness. The most common comment, Norwalk says, is that people are shocked that Seattle has so much homelessness and street drug use. Many visitors are coming here for the first time, and they wonder how a city so progressive and wealthy can allow these issues to happen.

“The word often used is ‘gritty,’” Norwalk notes. “The open drug use, the stench of urine in the alleys, the tent encampments on the waterfront. There’s a feeling that it’s gone wild.”



Norwalk worries more about the people who visit and don’t comment, but instead tell their friends and family about the problems in Seattle. Those silent guests represent future lost business for the city.



The safety problems also have financial repercussions for retailers, which struggle with theft on a daily basis. Seattle-based Bartell Drugs’ downtown stores are frequented by addicts stealing wine, homeless people stealing food and individuals paid by organized crime groups who come in with a list of items to steal, CEO Kathi Lentzsch says.



“Shoplifting is a daily event in our stores,” Lentzsch says.



GRITTY SEATTLE. Many visitors wonder why a city as progressive and wealthy as Seattle can’t get a better handle on homelessness and street drug use, downtown business leaders say.



Lentzsch worries about both the financial impact of the constant theft and the safety of her employees. When staff members have asked a shoplifter to take an item to the register and pay for it, they’ve been punched in the face. In one recent case, a woman attacked an employee for no apparent reason, and it took three police officers to get handcuffs on her. Another man started to tear the shelves apart and throw goods all over the store.



“It’s a punch in the gut every time I come to the office and see an email saying that someone was assaulted,” Lentzsch says.



Bartell Drugs identified at least nine of its stores as having serious enough crime problems to warrant armed officers but could only afford to staff guards at two of them. The officers at the Third and Union and Fourth and Jackson stores cost between $300,000 and $360,000 a year.



“We couldn’t believe how expensive it is,” Lentzsch says. “We couldn’t do it in most stores because it would wipe out our profits.”



Lentzsch announced this spring that the chain would open no more stores in downtown Seattle until safety conditions improve. Bartell tried to pull out of an existing lease for a Belltown store but could not, and will open that store this year with an armed guard and cameras.

Hospitality businesses along the Seattle waterfront also frequently encounter homeless camps and addicts. Bob Donegan, president of Ivar’s Seafood Restaurants, says he and other business leaders walk the waterfront several times a day, taking pictures of people camping or shooting up, then sending those images to the Seattle Police Department. The waterfront businesses also employ off-duty police officers during summer months to improve visitor safety.



“Without a doubt, it’s an issue,” Donegan says. “We are in the hospitality business and want visitors to have a good experience. When they’re seeing needles on the sidewalk, or stepping over feces, or smelling urine in the alleys, that’s not attractive.”



The Downtown Seattle Association and Visit Seattle hired attorney and public policy consultant Scott Lindsay to study 100 of the city’s most prolific offenders. In the report, released in February, Lindsay found that the same people commit the same crimes over and over again in the downtown core, with little consequence.



“We have not had an answer for this really difficult, complicated part of the population,” says Downtown Seattle Association’s Scholes. “The criminal justice system has not been accountable.”



Lindsay found that all of the offenders in this group were currently or recently homeless, all were dealing with substance abuse problems and 40 percent showed signs of mental health issues. This group is just a sample of the larger population of prolific offenders in Seattle, which Lindsay estimates at around 800 to 1,200.



The individuals continually reoffend because they are quickly released back into the streets. Those with mental health conditions are typically found not competent to stand trial. When the prolific offenders are given court-ordered conditions, such as appearing for court dates or not committing further law violations, they fail to comply. It takes on average six months for the Seattle City Attorney’s office to file theft cases, meaning individuals often continue to steal from the same stores every day.



Many of these prolific offenders regularly evade jail booking by claiming they are injured or have swallowed heroin so that they will be transported to Harborview. Since officers would have to wait several hours to accompany the suspect to jail, they are often forced to release the individuals at the hospital instead.



In the first two months after the report was released, 66 of the prolific offenders in the sample group had already committed another crime.



Visit Seattle and the Downtown Seattle Association hope the survey will spur the city to act. Norwalk believes hospitality and business leaders need to be vocal and relay visitors’ concerns and negative experiences to the city. He sent Christner’s letter to both the Mayor’s Office and the Seattle City Council, and said it received “minimal attention.”

“We are looking for strong leadership from the mayor,” Norwalk says. “How are we going to police and hold people accountable?”