Friday, January 08, 1999
Elder Cafe called drag on Findlay renewal
BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The city's $14 million revitalization of Findlay Market — Ohio's oldest operating public market — was supposed to draw shoppers from the suburbs and make Findlay the gem of Over-the-Rhine.
But nearly halfway into the project, vendors along the historic strip of Elder Street between Elm and Race streets see that dream as a long way away.
Monday's fatal shooting inside the Elder Cafe was the latest tear at the neighborhood's image.
That came a week after an extensive drug sweep and two months after another fatal shooting in a nearby alley.
Next week, Cincinnati police will begin using a surveillance camera posted at the intersection of Race and Elder streets in an effort to reduce drug dealing and other crimes associated with the troubled block.
The problems have left some merchants ready to close up shop.
“I was open Monday and made $2.99,” Tom Knueven, 56, owner of Knueven's Meats, said Wednesday. “Yesterday, I think I made $8. They've got to clean this neighborhood up.”
Mr. Knueven lives across the street from Findlay Market. He once saw a bright future there, but crime has clouded it.
“Crack cocaine's what killed this place, I'll tell you that right now,” he said. “It used to be fun. It used to be a lot closer down here. My stand's for sale now.”
Gary Geiger isn't ready to close his meat stand. It's been a family business since 1963.
Merchants still have pride in their shops, he said, but there's a growing effort to push the bad element out.
That includes a push by the city to close down the Elder Cafe, Councilman Phil Heimlich said.
The state liquor board rejected a liquor license renewal in September, but the bar is open while the ruling is under appeal.
In 1997, there were 70 police radio runs directed to the Elder Cafe and 100 arrests for vice activity such as prostitution and drug sales. One woman assaulted in the bar was cut with a 4-inch kitchen knife. Another patron was raped in the parking lot.
Between January and June of 1998, there were 51 radio-dispatched police runs to the bar. Of those, 37 involved violent crimes.
The Elder Cafe has had more violations than the Prime Time nightclub on Vine Street in Corryville that was forced to close in 1995. Elder Cafe's file of violations for the last year alone is more than an inch thick.
“It's been a thorn for a lot of people,” said retired Cincinnati police Officer Tom McAlpin, who walked the Findlay Market beat in the 1970s and watched two of his children work their first jobs at the market. “It's a shame. I still think there can be things done here to make it better.”
Diana Johnson, 42, the manager and barmaid at Elder Cafe, was work ing during Monday's shooting but said it hasn't slowed business for her.
She said she worries that her bar will shut down, because that would put her out of a job. Her boss, owner Jerome Grogan, could not be reached for comment.
But even bar patrons such as Elizabeth Dubose, 43, of Mount Healthy, want the tavern shut down. She said she came because she was a friend of Rodney “Bodean” Bolden, the man shot to death Monday, and she wanted to find out what happened.
A hearing on the fate of the bar is expected within weeks.
Gary Mallin, owner of Leader Furniture, the business next door to Elder Cafe, hopes the hearing will bring a resolution that's good for business.
“There have been days where I've called police several times,” he said.
He stays because his store has been a staple of the neighborhood for 35 years, and he says the market can overcome its problems and be the dream that city planners envisioned.
Bob Catanzaro, whose family has a food stand at the market, hopes Mr. Mallin is right.
“That's a lot of money to be investing in a place where there are shootings on a daily basis,” Mr. Catanzaro said. “What the city is doing right now should have been done about 20 years ago.”
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