Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announces new initiatives to combat crime

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Pete Zotos has owned St. Pete's Dancing Marlin for nearly 30 years in the heart of the Deep Ellum entertainment district. 

"I love Deep Ellum, I'm a Dallas guy," Zotos said.

He said he had to change their operating hours after a shooting several blocks away around 2 a.m. back in May left two people dead and three others hurt. 

"It's bad news, and ever since that happened, we started closing early on the weekend," Zotos said.

Instead of closing at 2 a.m., they close at midnight now, which he says has hurt business.

This week, Mayor Eric Johnson announced new public safety initiatives to keep violent crime down. 

"The bottom line is when it comes to keeping our residents safe, we can never ever become complacent," Johnson said.

They are in addition to his strategies from his Task Force On Safe Communities, Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia's violent crime reduction plan and the Mayor's Summer of Safety Campaign designed to connect teenagers to low-cost programs and keep them out of trouble.

Dallas police records show between Jan. 1 and July 5 this year, the city's violent crime rate has dropped by more than 2% and follows a decrease last year.

But during this same time homicides are up by nearly 17% to 126 from 108 during the same time last year.

Business robberies are also up this year by more than 16% to 265 from 228 the same time last year.

Mayor Johnson said he thinks his initiatives will help keep crime down.

"We have to start yesterday," Johnson said. "I mean, the best time to start these programs I'm talking about is yesterday, and the next best day is today. So that's what we're doing." 

He wants the city to become more aggressive and go after property owners that cause public safety problems.

The Mayor said he wants to work with the state to target problem bars before they become crime problems.  

"I want us to start working directly with TABC to take away the liquor licenses of problematic establishments," Johnson said. "We're doing everything we can and with respect to these nightlife areas, like Deep Ellum, that's what this new initiative that propose about going after people's liquor licenses is about.

You have to run your place by the book," Johnson continued. "There's a lot of places that don't run it by the book and they need to be held accountable. And if that's the teeth he's going to use in that new rule, I think that's a great idea."

He said he wants to change any perceptions there's a crime problem in Deep Ellum.     

In May, Dallas police stepped up presence in Deep Ellum and worked with businesses to reduce crime.

Mayor Johnson also said he wants the city to target property owners in blighted areas differently.      

He said he wants to use existing state laws that allow the city to fix-up run-down properties itself instead of taking property owners to court. 

"I'm working with our city attorney's office on this," Johnson said. "This is modeled after something that was very successful in Philadelphia, where rather than going through a lengthy legal process to get an owner to remediate a blighted property, we have state laws in place right now that we're not fully utilizing similar to what they had in Philadelphia, where we can just go in and remediate these properties ourselves. These things take time and we don't have time. I'm trying to make sure that our neighborhoods are safe right now for the people living in the city right now."