(from Carolyn Feibel of the Chron)
Convenience store owners would have to register their businesses with the city and install cameras, drop safes and panic buttons under a proposal headed to the City Council in the coming weeks.
The council's Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee voted Monday to recommend the proposed ordinance, aimed at controlling crime at hundreds of convenience stores across the city, to the full council, where it could be adopted within a month.
"This is a giant leap," said Zaf Tahir, a Houston convenience store owner and chair of Mayor Bill White's Task Force on Convenience Store Security. "Now, we have this industry on a path to a very safe and secure environment."
But Tahir added that the regulations are not a substitute for more police patrols.
"It's not going to fix all of the problems," he said. "This ordinance takes care of the training and of things that can be done at the stores. ... It needs to be coupled with increased presence of law enforcement."
On average, about 1,000 robberies and 10 homicides occur at convenience stores every year, according to Assistant Police Chief John Trevino.
Monday's committee action came two days after Independence Heights convenience store owner Joe Edward Moses died of injuries suffered during an apparent robbery. Moses, 70, was found at his store with severe head injuries Saturday and died at a hospital later that day.
(snip)
The proposed ordinance would require convenience stores to register with the city to establish a database. Right now, the city does not know how many convenience stores are in Houston, Tahir said.
The proposal also would require stores to have a minimum of two color digital surveillance cameras, a drop safe for cash deposits and a panic button that alerts a security company or police to a crime in progress.
Store owners would have to spend an average of $1,400 for those items, Trevino said. They would have until 2010 to comply.
Other rules that would go into effect within three months of the ordinance's adoption:
•Training: Currently, employee safety instruction consists of viewing a 10-minute DVD provided by HPD.
•Signage: "No loitering" and "No trespassing" signs posted on doors and walls, and "height strips" placed on doors, so a clerk can estimate a retreating robber's height for later identification to police.
•Visibility: Police or passers-by should be able to see the cash register from outside. Obstructions must be removed from windows and doors.
Robberies in convenience stores or their parking lots account for about 8 percent of all robberies in the city and some 3 percent of all homicides, Trevino said.
Hmmm...
Hasn't this been bandied around for over a year now? and we've tried laying the cost of crime prevention at the feet of apartment owners right? I wonder how that's working out?
Cute ordinances requiring video cameras, cleaning up clutter in the windows and safety training isn't going to do the job that additional officers on patrol can. I don't care how much lipstick you put on the pig.
OTHER EYES:
BlogHouston: A new ordinance will put an end to convenience store crime.
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1 comments:
How is this supposed to help?? I heard that there is a police substation practically across the street from this place, but no one is hardly ever there. It is to the point that you cannot work alone like this and be safe. Better insurance would be to get yourself a shotgun, pistol or whatever so you can get the bad guys before they get you.
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