Under a nuisance abatement law enacted by the city of Dallas, the city can designate local businesses that it considers to be the scene of recurrent crime, and then shut down those businesses. It did this to a car wash whose owner proceeded to obtain from the city and make public more than a hundred 911 call records in which he had pleaded with the city to come do something about criminal activity. “Neighborhood leaders have been licking their chops on social media talking about what they’ll do with his two large corner lots when the city finally squeezes him hard enough to make him sell.” [Jim Schutze, Dallas Observer via Tim Cushing, TechDirt]
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This law amounts to a new and rougher kind of “heckler’s veto” on the existence of any business, and gives those who might profit from such a taking a huge monetary incentive to cause one by causing crime (or at least the perception of crime) around the targeted business.
I wonder how long this incentive will be in place before someone takes advantage. Or maybe that’s what’s already happening in this very case.
Please enlighten me how, if they can destroy your life over their own (in)action, this doesn’t incentivize vigilante justice against the criminals instead?
[…] Earlier this month we linked the story of a Dallas car wash owner whose business was shut down by the city under a nuisance abatement law because it was deemed to attract crime, even though the owner was not alleged to have done anything to further the crime and in fact had called police many times to complain about it. […]