Santa Cruz County ballot measure could help issue with repeat offenders
More than 40 percent of businesses with the Downtown Santa Cruz Business Association said they’ve had to close their doors because of threatening behavior from individuals near or in their store.
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office conducted a survey asking businesses about some of the issues they see. Forty-three percent said they have had to close temporarily because someone was acting aggressive or threatening them.
Businesses KION spoke with said they see a lot of the same faces causing these problems.
Terry Rayburn, owner of Moon Zoom said, “Oh yeah, we have our list and all the people that work here they know certain people, we have people that have been 86’d from the store and we have certain people that are not welcome in.”
Rayburn has been the owner of the shop, Moon Zoom, on Pacific Avenue for 13 years.
“We get a lot of tourists, a lot of students, it’s still very vital, but we are getting challenged,” Rayburn said.
She said shop lifting and threatening behavior is an increasing problem, and often times it’s coming from the same individuals.
“We’ve definitely walked people out, we’ve called the cops, and we’ve had that. If we get too many people who are harassing or problematic, we’re going to stop getting the people that shop.”
In a recent budget hearing meeting for the county, Sheriff Jim Hart said it’s the repeat offenders and the underlying issues they need to focus on.
“There’s no intervention for these folks because of the low level crimes they’re committing. I’m willing to use the limited resources that I have in our jails and with our staff to get these people the help that they need. But I’m going to need additional money, additional funding to get this done,” said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart.
The county said that’s where Measure G funds come in.
It’s a proposed half cent sales tax for the unincorporated parts of Santa Cruz County that will be on the November ballot. The county said one million dollars from that would go towards a program to help the repeat offenders who are resistant to getting help.
Coming up at 6 KION’s Ashley Keehn will have more on how that money from Measure G would be spent.
