Submitted by vbm-seaside-71 t3_yca5fd in CambridgeMA
There's rumor on NextDoor that Starbucks in Central Square is going to be permanently closing. The OP said it's because they cannot guarantee their staffs safety at this point.
Has anyone else heard this? (outside of NextDoor)
Have there been a bunch of incidents there? I haven't heard of anything like that...
Howard Schultz getting out ahead of another unionized store I see
Bingo. Thank you.
I'm not a fan of Starbucks. The space will undoubtedly be turned into another bank. It's more about the message of what's happening in Central Square. Is the CPD doing anything to help this situation?
I live outside of Central and walked through there this morning on the way to work. Trash and needles on the street. People yelling at each other and acting belligerent. It looks bad.
There's a Cambridge Police satellite office across the street but when you are asking police officers to respond to a public health crisis and act as de facto social workers for people without access to healthcare this is what you get
I mean I didn’t think things there were particularly worse than the last few years, but perhaps I’m missing something.
I've lived here a long time. It has picked up since 2019.
Sure, there has always been a group of people who hang out in front of Cambridge Savings, but now there are people actively doing drugs, passing out in the parks adjacent to the square.
Welp I moved here around 2019 so that’s why I didn’t notice. Still, I can think of a lot shadier places where there is still a Starbucks.
first of all, I’d love to know a single instance where social workers have successfully made even the slightest improvement in such a “public health crisis”. Many social workers push bullshit “harm reduction” tactics that involve providing addicts with needles in the hopes that somehow that will make them choose to go to rehab. That doesn’t really inspire confidence in their methods.
second of all, if other people are being threatened by the behavior of those hanging around central square, it is no longer just a “public health crisis”. I have been followed and threatened at central. So have many other people I know. Last time I checked, these are issues that should be handled by police.
This isn’t a defense of the Cambridge police, BTW— I’m not anti police, but I think they are either lazy or corrupt or some combination of the two. I called them when I was being followed and threatened at central and they did nothing. They seem to respond to noise complaints and speeding but nothing else.
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Central square has always been grimy (at least since I started spending time there around 1996 or so) but it also hosted a lot of very unique and useful retail. Dance complex, record stores, cafes, great restaurants, Pearl/Blick, Cantab and so forth.
I am not surprised that the situation with the ne'er-do-wells has deteriorated to the point where shops are moving out. To those who are saying 'good riddance to Starbucks', I share the sentiment, but what is stopping 1369 of succumbing to the same fate? Or artists and craftsman supply, or the falafel place, or Life Alive?
I personally have zero confidence that either the police or social workers can transform Central into a place free from open drug use and constant harassment. All I know is that addiction is incredibly powerful and nobody should have to live around that shit.
This is Cambridge PD's most recent crime report:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23132614-bridgestat_september2022_final
Central really has gotten bad. And crime across Cambridge is way up over the last 5 years:
| 2017 | 2022 -- | -- | -- rape | 13 | 29 agg assault | 137 | 180 robbery | 36 | 67 auto theft | 69 | 127
The idea of harm reduction strategies like needle exchanges and safe injection sites isn't to get people to go to to rehab, it's to keep them from getting HIV and hepatitis and dying from overdose.
what about strategies to keep people who aren’t doing drugs and endangering the public with their antisocial behavior safe? make safe injection sites if you want— don’t put them on the street though. these social work strategies are always half baked
City govt does not want the optics of cracking down hard on drug related offenses, there’s not even a drug unit in CPD anymore. The police here almost always show up and handle situations when they occur, unlike other cities (read the LA sub). Everyone in this sub knows damn well that if it was 2+ years ago and police were aggressively cracking down on the very transgressors we’re talking about in this thread, there’d be fucking rallies at City Hall and at CPD about the police oppressing socioeconomically disenfranchised people.
The mixed messaging about the scope of what this country wants police to do has become remarkably convoluted. If you want directives on how to handle the illegal behavior that’s going on here you need to first look at city government and city management because they delegate to the police. Do you think Portland’s well documented ongoing crisis is because of police inaction..
Relative. It's absolutely nothing like how it was in the 70's and 80's.
No drug unit? that’s insane jfc. people in this city need to grow up
Well some strategies are, for example, getting people into long-term housing (instead of into temporary and restrictive homeless shelters), providing basic needs like food and clothing, and otherwise addressing the problems that cause people to be on the street and chronically homeless. Those are all the purview of social workers, though. The other approach would be to just lock people up, at expense to the state and with basically no chance of long-term behavioral change. Is that what you'd suggest? (Also safe injection sites are not on the street they are indoors???)
Is it? What were the numbers like back then?
So? Should we not want things to improve? This isn’t the 70s or 80s, and sure, it’s better than then, but will no action be taken until it’s on par with 70s / 80s?
If Starbucks corporation really cared about their workers they would provide them with a living wage that would provide for adequate housing and the cost of living in Cambridge.
Central square is so much worse now than it was 10 years ago. Idk wtf the cambridge govt needs to do but whatever is going on right now isn't doing a damned thing. Walked through there Saturday at like 4:30pm to a guy leaning against the public bathroom exterior to whop his dick out and pee right on the sidewalk, and not a cop in sight
I didn't mean to stand in the way of your pitchfork. In general, crime remains near all time lows. We are in the middle of a significant economic upheaval, which always causes social upheavals in tandem. This isn't really something specific to policy in any one city, state, country, or intersection.
You can get the picture probably from looking at this. It doesn't include the most recent data, but you can see that things are really dramatically improved.
CPD would rather ticket people going straight while in the right hand turn only lane at that intersection
A ski jumping slope goes down, down, down, and then kicks back up at the end. Yes, it's been going down for a while, but by the time you're coming off the end, things are moving upward. Absolutely nothing near where you were at the top, but you can't deny things are rising.
The passing out has been happening for 5+ years, right in front of CSB.
I called 911 at least twice because I was worried I was watching an OD in real time.
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And my SO wouldn't walk through that area by herself at all. Constant, nonstop harassment by the junkies.
when is 1369 even open anymore?
cops aren't really the solution to this problem, unless you want them to shoot someone.
yeah I have literally never seen a safe injection site on the street.
They just extended their hours: M-F 7-3, weekends 8-4
That's great to hear - is there a way i can have my tax dollars go directly to the social work group?
it seems like it's closed literally every time I'm in central. I'd like to give them some money for coffee.
What is this argument? You think crime picks up momentum as it falls? What on earth? Listen, crime has surely risen since the Pandemic's economic disruption. But I am simply not going to join in on a crime panic on that small relative effect. Things will calm down when the economic situation stabilizes.
Crime in Cambridge has been falling for most of that period until the Pandemic.
I know there are a lot of sketchy people in central. But I just walk by quickly. Never stop or look at them. The homeless people who ask for change are nice, in my experience.
In my experience most of the incidents that would make me never visit Central do not rise to the level of crime, and certainly not crime I'd report to the police.
What makes you so confident about the economic situation stabilizing?
Some of y’all are new to the area and it really shows.
God damnit.
Is the memorial drive Starbucks still closed too? And the one in Harvard square closed a while back.
Maybe SBUX is trying to keep their staff safe from organizing.
Harvard Square location is reopening where the Curious George store was.
If you're complaining about a small uptick in crime but really believe we're on the edge of the apocalypse, it seems like I'd be wasting my efforts trying to convince you that crime is relatively quite low on a historical basis. I wish you the best of luck in your apocalypse, and maybe I will catch up with you when you emerge from your basement.
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I guess that police substation directly across Mass Ave isn’t helping much. Maybe if it was ever staffed.
Down Mass Ave toward MIT, yes. Not that immediate area around Carl Baron Plaza, it’s gotten much worse.
It's not even how it was in the 90s.
Everyone who is concerned about crime in Central Square, please contact your city councillors!
Late 80’s and early 90’s- the crime rate was triple what it is nowadays.
I walked home past the Central Library branch the other night and there were three guys shooting up in plain sight.
No, the CPD are napping in their cars in the parking lot by Fort Washington. Every time I walk my dogs there's like three or four cruisers.
More money for the city that way.
That's why the Dunks and Wendy's closed. I remember the city council denying it at the time when Wendy's actually mentioned it in a press release. Much like they are trying to pretend Starbucks closing is about something else as well. People see what's happening in Central Square despite the council's smoke and mirrors. I've lived here since '92 and this is the worst it has ever been.
They could use that extra pay to take karate classes to fend off the whack jobs. Its win/win!
Yeah, so they can "get to the root of the problem". No sense arresting people until Mark McGovern has single-handedly ended addiction and mental health problems. Just give him a few more years. Maybe condo development for pharma-bros really is the solution!
Thanks for the insight. Others have said that crime rates are statistically down in Cambridge if you look over the decades. Do you think those rates arent telling the whole story?
Yeah, the clown that put a needle exchange on Green Street and then bragged about his kids having to walk by it’s users as everyone needs to do their part.
This is what happens when the door to that public restroom is always locked. I'll use the sidewalk, too, if the door is locked. The lack of public restrooms is the real disgrace.
Central is ruled by junkies and drunks. I'm not concerned so much by the crime, but man it would be nice if you could sit outside in Central without seeing a syringe or being harassed for money.
I mean if Life Alive wants to close (and stop opening new stores in every goddamn corner of the city) I'd be fine with that.
Do you think city leadership is considering how to improve the circumstances at all or is it just accepted that Central is the part of Cambridge that harbors these issues?
Central Square used to be the murder capital of Boston. Though I am not sure if it still has the title, the Starbucks closing does not surprise me.
Nabs617 t1_itkzg4z wrote
Saw it on Cambridgeday. Closes Nov. 13th.
https://www.cambridgeday.com/2022/10/14/crime-is-costing-central-square-its-starbucks/