Downtown Tulsa is thriving with new restaurants, retail and living spaces popping up on every corner.
From panhandling to people breaking in and stealing his stuff... One restaurant owner told 2 Works For You he's had enough.
Downtown districts once boarded up are now flourishing with nightlife and a hip new scene, but with all that growth, comes some element of crime.
“It's bad for business because there's a lot of people I would love to come out to TULSA, but some people have this fear of Tulsa being horrible crime area and it's not. But when this kind of stuff happens it gives them a real bad taste," said Chris West, Owner of Lassalle's.
West believes in Tulsa.
He moved here after Hurricane Katrina and opened his popular New Orleans-themed restaurant.
It's not customers waiting in line to try his popular sandwiches he’s worried about--it's criminals sneaking in the middle of the night.
“They're getting wise to this down here. There's restaurants everywhere now in downtown, so it's an opportunity for them because a lot of restaurants do this,” said West, showing 2 Works For You
“They see these giant 18-wheelers pulling up, so they know that the door is going to be open and when that door is open for them, they'll sit there and wait, when the driver goes into the 18 wheeler, they'll slip into the restaurant and hang out in the lobby and take whatever they need to, stand there, hide, and when the driver goes back out, they'll leave the restaurant,” said West.
In the past few years, Tulsa Police dedicated an entire squad of officers to patrol downtown and keep an eye on crime.
Year-to-year, Cpl. Brandon Davis told 2 Works For You crime is down and arrests are up.
“There's a difference and that's despite the growing homeless population,” said Cpl. Davis.
Davis said his officers are aggressive about tracking down reported crimes, but they can only do so much.
"We can’t solve it if we don't know about it and obviously we're not going to solve all of them, but it's just a numbers game. You may report that one crime that we might actually solve and prevent that guy from committing 15-20 others (crimes)," said Davis.
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