Businesses are fleeing the blue city in droves as crime crushes profits

Several Washington, DC restaurants and businesses have been forced to flee the city due to rising crime and costs in the area, Fox5 DC reported.

Brine Oyster & Seafood House, a popular restaurant that opened its first location in the city in 2020, will close its H Street and DuPont Circle locations in D.C. due to violent crime that has “made it impossible … to survive,” depending on the restaurant. owners he wrote to X, formerly known as Twitter. The restaurant locations will be the 47th and 48th to close in the city this year, seconds on Fox5.

“We’ve both been robbed numerous times, at my restaurants. Numerous times,” Brine Oyster & Seafood House co-owner Aaron McGovern told Fox5. “So has everyone on the block, many times. We started seeing violence. Not just, ‘Oh, there’s a gunshot a mile away.’ We heard the bullets. It’s … the restaurant I’m looking at right now had four shootings there four weeks ago.”

Statement from our owners, Aaron & Arturas. pic.twitter.com/a4G0h6DhmE

— BrineOysterDC (@BrineOysterDC) November 9, 2023

Restaurants and businesses across the city have begun voicing concerns about rising costs, decreased foot traffic and increased crime, Fox5 reported. A business owner chose to close his business in October after reporting that his store has been hit with retail theft on an almost daily basis. seconds on WUSA9 CBS.

Businesses along the H Street corridor in DC have reported a massive increase in crime in 2023, with a restaurant, The Pursuit Wine Bar and Kitchen stolen five times in eight months, Fox5 reported. Another businessman, who owns five properties on H Street, said he has lost customers because of the violent crime that has begun to engulf the area, seconds on WTOP News, a local media outlet.

“We are exhausted. I think every business is,” Adam Kelinsky, the owner of The Pursuit Wine Bar and Kitchen, he said FOX 5 in August. “Every day, I wake up to an announcement on our community WhatsApp post where someone has broken into one of our sister businesses, friends on the street or someone who supports a business has been attacked. It’s terrifying.”

Citywide property crime has increased by 25% since 2022, while burglaries have increased by 68%, seconds to police data. Crime has increased so much that even the once trendy neighborhoods have started to become swallowed for violence and theft.

Democratic DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has tried to change the zone answer to crime in recent weeks com residents have begun to push back against the city’s police reforms and indulgent punishments for most crimes. But McGovern said he had to close his restaurants in part because those efforts have done little to curb crime so far and urged local politicians to focus more on safety in D.C., Fox5 reported.

“I think our leadership in government and local government should take a look at businesses,” McGovern told Fox5. “The safety of citizens. The well-being of your tax base and seeing that is important because people will leave. They stop going out. They will move out of town and you must protect your citizens.”

The D.C. Police Department and the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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