South Aspect Bar, restaurant homeowners worry latest shootings may damage enterprise – CBS Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Bar and restaurant owners describe the recent violence on the South Side of Pittsburgh as frightening and bad for business.

KDKA’s Meghan Schiller spoke to business owners about why they fear the post-lockdown behavior will hurt their profits.

CONTINUE READING: 1 dead after gunfire near the quarry field on Pittsburgh’s South Side Hanges

“That’s sure to be a possibility,” said Joshua Wirwas, the manager at Fat Heads. “If it gets bad enough.”

The sound of the saxophone filled the corner of 18th Street on Friday, hours after shots rang out across East Carson Street in a nightly triple shoot.

Business owners tell KDKA they fear the shootings will keep customers away.

“We had this pandemic that kept people in the house and now we don’t need people to keep people in the house,” said Averill “Apple” Grimes, the kitchen manager at Fat Heads.

At Fat Heads, they block off the parking lots with garbage containers to keep the nightly crowds away.

CONTINUE READING: Charlie Gerow, a candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, said he did not cause a fatal crash on the turnpike

“It’s nerve-wracking to play around with,” said Grimes. “We’re such a quiet place and it’s nerve-wracking that something so crazy happens across the street.”

The talk of the nightly shooting filled Soul and Sea. It’s a new place just a few steps from the crime scene.

“People are afraid to come here because they have heard or seen something. I think that’s a shame, “said Soul and Sea manager Jennifer Hawkins.

Councilor Bruce Kraus lives on the South Side and hopes to reopen the former Zone 3 Police Station on Mary Street. He hopes to tap $ 500,000 a year, spread over four years, from federal aid from the American Rescue Plan.

“And I have assurances from Chief Dan Gilman and Mayor Peduto that the first assignment is to complete the opening of Zone 3 down here on the 18th and Mary, and we should see that shortly,” Kraus said.

KDKA received confirmation of the plan from the City of Pittsburgh and learned that the ARP funding plan included money for a South Side substation.

MORE NEWS: Decayed body found in Pennsylvania Construction Company dumpster

A spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police told KDKA, “Public safety is working with public works on this possible option in the future.”