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Councilors to look at curbing drug use, violence on Boston Common and downtown; one councilor wishes her colleagues and the media would stop being so darn negative, though

The City Council yesterday approved holding a hearing at which to consider ways to combat what some said was drug use and related violence that are so bad they are making some residents think of moving away and of threatening Boston's tourism industry.

The council voted for the hearing requested by Councilor Ed Flynn (Downtown, South Boston, South End, Chinatown), who in August demanded the city cancel all events on the Common following a stabbing off Winter Street. The city did not and events on the Common and on Summer Street went off without a hitch.

Flynn said that over the past few months, residents, workers and business owners have complained to him about the rise of "open drug dealing and drug use, violent crime, with a number of stabbing and assaults and an overall decline in sense of public safety" in downtown and around the Common.

He said that downtown residents and even doctors say they no longer feel safe walking on downtown streets after 5 or 6 p.m., and that some residents have told him they are "seriously considering moving out," even if that means selling their condos at a loss. He added that in September, Boston Police reported that "crime stats in the area are trending upward."

He said some tour operators are now re-routing their buses to avoid the Common, at least in the area of Tremont and Park. "Tour operators and visitors were punched," he said.

He added that one 4-year-old and her caregiver on the way to school on Beacon Hill were attacked by a woman with mental and behavioral problems and that a man was stabbed at Brewer Fountain in October.

Flynn said the city needs to provide treatment and other resources for people suffering from substance-abuse and behavioral problems, but, at the same time, he called for a "zero tolerance" policy and the arrests and stiff sentencing of people committing any illegal act downtown, even if that proves politically unpopular.

"We cannot continue to allow violent crime, open drug dealing, drug use and other activities to take over the area at the expense of our residents, businesses and visitors," he said. "These parks belong to everybody."

Councilor Sharon Durkan (Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway, Mission Hill), said she was heartened when District A-1, after requests from her and community members, managed to rustle up some extra officers for foot patrols to ensure that Boston Common "remains a safe place."

She said the extra eyes have helped immensely and quoted from a letter she said she got from a Beacon Hill resident who said the Common has become so safe, she recently walked past the Brewer Fountain with her 1-year child and didn't feel afraid, re-igniting the love of Boston she developed after moving here from New York ten years ago and realized Boston "is truly beautiful and the people are kind and wonderful."

Durkan then tore into other councilors, whom she did not name, and the media, for becoming such Debbie Downers when it comes to public safety in the area.

"I have heard from commercial real-estate folks that the way that this issue is being discussed, particularly in the media, is impacting businesses' willingness to move downtown," she said. And businesses that don't move downtown won't be providing the extra foot traffic and eyes on the street that provide extra safety - and internships and jobs for local residents and students.

"I caution us to not have negative impacts on businesses that want to move here," she said, calling on other councilors and the media to turn their frowns upside down. "The way we talk about Boston and the candor we take has an impact on businesses and it has an impact on people willing to move here," she said.

As an example of what can happen with a positive outlook, she pointed to Car Gurus, which recently held an opening ceremony for its new headquarters at Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street. She said Car Gurus officials said they chose Boston because of its community feel and ease of getting from one place to another - and that councilors should be highlighting such stories.

City Councilor Julia Mejia (at large) said she's actually kind of glad that downtown and Beacon Hill are beginning to experience the same sort of problems residents of areas such as Roxbury and Mattapan have suffered for years - and that's why she asked Flynn to make her a formal co-sponsor of his hearing request.

"Oftentimes it's Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan that are dealing with issues like this," she said. "And not to say that I'm happy to see it happening on Beacon Hill or Back Bay, but I am going say that, because I think what it does is it creates an opportunity for other people to understand what it looks like when we have been sounding the alarm for decades and now that it's spilling over all across the city, my hope is that everyone is going to start recognizing the role that we all play in making sure that we're addressing this issue in ways that make sense."

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Comments

I bike along the Common at least twice a week ar this point at around 6am, and the most I see is an errant duck. I'm sure there are issues but this seems overly dramatic.

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That's one mean duck.

“He said that downtown residents and even doctors say they no longer feel safe walking on downtown streets after 5 or 6 p.m.,”

You can always count on a head scratcher comment from Flynn. Why would doctors be less likely than anyone else to feel unsafe?

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Ray just thinks people are more impressed by opinions held by doctors. Because they are more prestigious and because his grampy and granny thought so too. Dr Kildare and that TV reality still have a grip on this simple fellow.

To proclaim "We are safer than New York"

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Did we ever figure out those disease-spreading street sweepers?

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Interesting idea. Most people think of, or study? street sweepers under normal conditions: sweeping, spraying and vacuuming (without HEPA): leaves, wrappers, cigarette butts, a little squirrel and bird poop, but we don’t think of them as routinely operating in the extreme and abnormal situation of a street camp for the unwell (who by the way should be cared for) without sanitary infrastructure. Do the street sweepers spray disinfectant?

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.., working in unsafe conditions. Mainly due to particles in the air that lodge in the lungs and damage to ear drums from high decibels.

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Noxious noise levels. Particles including: pollen, fungal spores, heavy metals, &c., &c…

And carcinogens. 2-stroke engines require motor oil added to the gasoline, both of which contain carcinogenic compounds, and 30% of the mixture does not undergo combustion and is spread in the microenvironment: in the air, on the lawn, garden, play strictures, lawn furniture and through open windows.

https://council.seattle.gov/2014/07/30/guest-blog-post-the-dangers-of-ga...

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Which makes her sound happy.

Flynn’s usual buffoonery takes center stage.

I walk through the Common at all hours of the day and night. Every day. Have never not felt safe and relaxed. It’s crossing the streets to get to the Common that scares the piss out of me.

This is the problem that exacerbates all others.

They both make Durkin sound reasonable. Never thought I’d ever say that.

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The area around Brewer Fountain was super-sketchy all this spring while they were doing the restoration. The corner of Winter & Tremont was a mini-Mass & Cass yesterday afternoon around sunset, and that whole stretch of Tremont opposite the Common has been dodgy for years now. Plus there's the whole situation around the 7-Eleven on Summer but that's obviously not the Common.

None of it is safe or relaxing or OK. And saying that everything is fine downtown isn't going to negate the reality which people see when they live/work/visit downtown.

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… who can’t accept that people have different experiences and opinions from you.

You don’t even seem to understand the boundaries of the Common or where it is.

Stay in your Midwestern suburb and mow the grass.

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You’re dishonest

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But you are anonymous.

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It's pretty obvious who really does spend time downtown and who does not.

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Now you don’t have to live with your lie.

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The Brewer Fountain area is a mess.

It is the start of the Freedom Trail and the gateway to the city for many people from out of state and the country.

Apparently Freedom means being whacked out on smack with you and 4 dozen others.

The Brewer Fountain area's blight bleeds over to the Vacant Storefront Museum known as Winter Street.

If you can't admit that this is a problem then you are no different than a MAGA cultist who denies all wrong doing by their guy just to justify their mindset.

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… for city life, John Boy. Good thing you fled a long time ago.

How’s the tip jar to balance the city budget tactic going?

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You seem to be intent on normalizing and accepting activity that is detrimental to the individual, detrimental to those close by, and detrimental to the city.

Get over yourself.

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…. crazy assertions that the Common is across Tremont St on Winter Street.

Assertions that hundreds of thousands people do not spend time on the Common enjoying themselves in no danger and return to their homes unharmed.

That myself and other commenters have not stated they rarely or never see the kind of behavior Flynn is claiming rages on all day and all night in an attempt to further his political ambitions.

That the speeding distracted scofflaws drivers that circle both the Common and the Public Garden do not cause the most havoc and injuries by far compared to the crimes sometimes but rarely committed by a population of disenfranchised and unwell citizens who are in need of help.

I don’t know what your agenda is other than total intolerance of and the suppression of the honest expression of different opinions of people who actually spend time on the Common but differ from yours and the ass whose ass you kiss.

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Stay in your midwestern town? Some of us traverse this several times a day and live nearby. The area up by the fountain has absolutely been sketchy for a while. Never mind the other side of tremont by the perpetually under construction T entrance. Never mind trying to walk down or up winter street to / from dtx.

Sincerely

I live here. Not from a midwestern town. Not taking the T to the edges of the last stop. Not taking the commute rail to the burbs. Not a student.

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at least in the warm weather months. Berklee College of Music used to regularly program this location as part of their Summer in the City series, and the city should encourage them to resume this next year.

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On my way home from work.

The area by Park St. has been sketchy for my entire life; the fountain and blunt hill.

There was an uptick during the spring, but the pearl clutching makes it sound like Bob and Joan from Dubuque just had their first cup of coffee in a city.

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I'm on the Common every day and have never seen any of it.

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Walk it everyday.
You must close your eyes within a thousand yard radius of Winter Place - cesspool.

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The Common is huge. You need a better argument.

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For all intents and purposes it may as well be the Common in the sense that one must walk to and from places.

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And when I do, no one bothers me except the smokers which are everywhere in Boston.

Many visitors enter the Common far from that Downtown area.

So for all “intents and purposes” you are wrong to claim that is the Common. The Common is huge. You should Google it sometime.

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I hear what you’re saying.

I knew Winter Place as the alleyway that connects Winter Street to Temple Place where I used to catch the SL5 to Dudley Station. I never associated it with being on the Common. You're real estate agents sold you a bill of goods if that's what they told you before you bought a condo there.

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From Winter Place? It's a dead-end side alley off Winter Street. No one uses it to get "to and from" anywhere except adjacent businesses.

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Winter St. shortest and most natural route between Downtown Crossing and the Common and passing the maw of Winter Place is unavoidable.

It’s an interesting case study on how there’s no common ground on the facts on the ground on the Common unless this is all a jocular schtick that’s going over my head. :)

Now consider the thousand yard radius I mentioned

Not sure where you're walking, either. If you walk the Freedom Trail between Tremont and Beacon, up Park Street, at any time of day, there are easily 40-50 people congregating on the benches leading to the Gould monument. At the very least there is loud yelling and folks camped with shopping carts; at the most, open needle use. The last time I walked there was last week. There have always been folks loitering around Park Street, but the open drug use (imo) has skyrocketed since the pandemic.

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Then again at 12pm.

Could not have been more pleasant a day on the Common. Nothing you claim goes on all the time was happening. Not even a whiff of tobacco or marijuana in the air.

… a pick up driver ran a red light, nearly striking a family in the crosswalk. Then blocked the next crosswalk and intersection and several pedestrians because he chose to break the law again by entering an intersection when it was not possible to continue through the intersection.

I was slightly disappointed he sped off again before I could smack his windshield. I don’t think the fragile bully could have handled a public spanking.

It would be convenient to have stocks and pilories reinstalled at this corner of the Common so that the frequent dangerous drivers could be promptly removed from their vehicles and placed in custody to await the police while they finish their coffee and donuts at the Filabuster Cafe.

But open drug use is everywhere, not just the Common. Laws are laughed at and hard to enforce. Why don't they legalize cocaine shops and fentanyl shops like they did pot shops and liquor stores, while they are on a role. If you stop open drug use on the Common, then sit back and watch many more addicts head on over to the many excellent hiding places in Beacon Hill, or one of the hundreds of post Covid vacant and neglected office building doorways that smell like urine. The addicts will then proceed to sit down, or huddle close together so passersby can't see what they are doing, smoke their little glass crackpipes (which are openly and legal sold at potshops and convenience stores), or stick a needle in their neck due to veins in arms being collapsed, and shit all over themselves. Why don't they just stop the people who are bringing the drugs into our country like a nonstop tsunami? They won't. Because homelessness and addiction keep a lot of people (politicians, medical professionals, pharmacists, law enforcement people, court employees, lawyers, and funeral directors, etc. employed. I am someone who lived the life. My heart tells me I will never go back to smoking crack again. But my brain tells me otherwise. Yep. Spreading knowledge and awareness to City Council and the out-of-touch-with-realty pearl clutchers.

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Why don't they just stop the people who are bringing the drugs into our country like a nonstop tsunami? They won't. Because homelessness and addiction keep a lot of people (politicians, medical professionals, pharmacists, law enforcement people, court employees, lawyers, and funeral directors, etc. employed.

Maybe you are still on crack if you believe this. I am all for a good "we're being a profit center" conspiracy theory for healthcare but this isn't the case here.

You make it sound it all can be solved with a few waves of a magic wand by a few key people. Or that some more rigorous enforcement is needed. I really wish this was the case. But it is not. It's just not that easy.

And frankly, if the world was like the plot to the movie "A Scanner Darkly", we would have endless privately run treatment centers on every street corner. Which we do not. In fact, we NEED more treatment centers to help with the problem.

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Did I touch a nerve with the truth about drug traffickers being the root of the problem? Get out your box of Bandaids keep affixing them to the infectious, oozing, budget draining lesions.

The problem is you are wrong.

Supply follows demand. Learn some basic econ and public health, please.

Selling their condos at a loss? That’s not the market we are in here, it’s going up and up and up.
That’s what’s driving people to leave Boston, we can’t afford to live here anymore if you don’t own already or work in tech/finance.

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Everywhere around the city is becoming "investment" real estate. Places being built and sold are staying empty. Property gets bought and held by the banks. Decreases the supply, Raises the prices for actual buyers.

anymore. Not just the liberal left wing media, but all media. The Boston Glibe and CBS were the first to report false and biased news stories. Now all media including stories on the internet must be taken with a grain of salt.

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It’s all an infomercial for the parent company. It is critically important to restore the “firewall” between the news (which is a very special, exceptional case of commerce) and commerce, it is critically important to return editorializing and opinion pieces to a conspicuous stand aside segment where they
camera pans over to a dedicated area, or written piece that is clearly, visually separated from the style of the program for which denizens of say a “Kup’s Column (in ink), or a “Kup’s Corner” (on t.v.) may not stray into the newsreader’s desk as newsreaders must not (perhaps) stray into column writing, or opinionating (for sure) Further, it is critical that the loose, casual of language of delivery and the presentation of self for anchors, reporters and newsreaders all be rolled back to the neutral gold standard of news in the apex times. It is Impossible for casual, everyday language not to carry bias. So too every arched eyebrow, tilted head, and smirk is an editorial unto itself.

entirely anonymous person on the internet?

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Of it's former vibrant self for a long time now. It's sad. And a reflection of America as a whole. For years now, public safety has been mockedby some people. Riots, not protests, have been allowed. Mentally unstable, many homeless, are a big problem.

So, the councilors are looking at curbing their use of drugs on the Common? About damn time.

I wish those quoting crime stats on the Common would stick to just crime stats on the Common rather than pairing it with Downtown Crossing.

… they skip the corner of Tremont and Winter. They would have make an illegal U turn after viewing the Old Granary Burying Ground and other historic sights.

I’d be glad if they did though. Especially the killer Duck Boats. It would make getting to the Common less of a trial of dodging red light scofflaws.

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I assumed this meant skipping a stop there, not skipping driving past it. Tourists couldn't really get punched by someone on on the Common if they were only riding past on a bus.

Too bad for the tourists as the public restrooms on the Common are just a block down Tremont.
Maybe they just stop down there. Or a block up the street at the granary.
Anyway, considering the poor driving skills of many of these bus and duck boat drivers who make crossing Tremont a major risk in itself, I can’t have much sympathy for their whine.

Magoo was walking in the common several moons ago and saw an earthworm. Magoo picked up said earthworm and said to said earthworm, “why hello squirmy wormy why are yoo so squirmy.” Said earthworm proceeded to go poopy poops on Magoo’s hand which Magoo took to be the answer to why said earthworm was so squirmy. Said earthworm was so squirmy because said earthworm had to go poopy poops! Magoo.

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Is this Ed Flynn?

in the commons

Predictable.

poopy poops

Also predictable.

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When it comes to such excretions, I think the term is "regular".

I don't know what Meija or Flynn are smoking, but he's vastly overrating the problem now and she must not have been around pre-pandemic when I and my coworkers got trained for Narcan and were calling in a couple nodders a week!

I haven't seen a nodder since the late teens, when it was actually faster to flag down the roving EMS folks than call it in. Even the JW crews with their literature towers were packing narcan!

There are sketchy times and places, sure, but I feel overall safer now downtown than I did in 2017 and 2018 when the opioid epidemic was in a higher gear.

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In the past the activity was discouraged and masked to be less visible. Probably about the same level of "bad" activity but less "good"actity to offset it.

We need more regular, normal?, activity.

An opportunity for the DTX BID.

Offer yoga, Tai chi, dance, choir in the morning. Brink in the buskers later.

Create.Activity.

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We can't Boston cops to pull over a speeder in our neighborhood. Flynn thinks the cops are going to patrol the streets and arrest drug addicts? Good luck.