'Enforce the laws': South Side business owners fear for patron, employee safety after rash of shootings

Back-to-back shootings on and near Pittsburgh’s busy East Carson Street last weekend have prompted at least one business to close its doors permanently and left other owners struggling to understand why authorities cannot seem to keep control of the entertainment district.

“One hundred percent of South Side residents and businesses want this to stop today,” said Rich Cupka, who owns two bars in the South Side Flats neighborhood. “The laws are in place — enforce the laws.”

Two people were critically injured just after closing time June 5 when multiple people exchanged gunfire. The shooting, near the corner of East Carson and South 15th streets, sent people still gathered in the streets running, police said.

When the shooting stopped, police found three guns and multiple shell casings. About 4 a.m. the next day, a man ducked into Cambod-Ican Kitchen at the corner of Carson and South 17th after he was shot in the leg.

Police have not announced arrests in either incident.

Pittsburgh Public Safety officials did not return requests for comment, noting only that they will soon hold a press conference to discuss, among other items, violence on the South Side. Mayor Ed Gainey is expected to walk the South Side streets after midnight this weekend to view the scene, according to Tribune-Review partner WPXI.

The June 5 shooting happened outside of the Fudge Farm, a chocolate and ice cream shop. Although it was closed at the time, owners said on social media that they could not take any chances.

“Due to the uncontrollable shootings and violence as well as other circumstances on East Carson Street … today will be Fudge Farm’s last day there,” owners said via Facebook. “We can no longer ask teenage children, or (anyone) for that matter, to work for us in this environment.”

Other business owners are also considering their patrons’ and employees’ safety.

“Do we stay open til 11 p.m. or do we shut down?” said Frank Vetere, owner of Carson City Saloon in the 1400 block of East Carson.

He said closing early as a safety precaution is an option, but he worries what that will mean for his business’s future.

“We are a college bar,” he said. “If we don’t stay open late, we don’t stay profitable and we go under.”

He said teenagers and young adults come to the neighborhood because they “know they can do whatever (they) want.”

“You walk outside of the bar, there are people blasting music, drinking, doing drugs — it’s not a good area for 16-year-olds walking around at 1 a.m.,” Vetere said.

More police enforcing more laws, he said, could help the problem.

“All we want is a safer South Side,” he said. “That is what all the business owners, all the residents want.”

An ongoing problem

Neither the problem nor the struggle for a solution is new.

Former Mayor Bill Peduto in late 2019 pledged a Zone 3 substation near the East Carson Street corridor, part of a larger plan to add a substation in Homewood, another substation Downtown and add a seventh police station to patrol the North Shore.

The administration in October announced work had begun on the Zone 3 substation, which would be situated in a former police station on South 18th Street.

Officials said at the time the substation would cut down on response times to East Carson and allow for officers to be more visible and active in the area. Officers would staff the substation during high-traffic times like weekends.

It’s unclear where that project stands or if it is on the radar of the Gainey administration.

Mayoral spokeswoman Maria Montano would not say whether the project — for which construction and renovations were already underway at the time of the October announcement — remains in progress or has been shuttered.

Officials had previously said that money from the American Rescue Plan would be used to finance the project, although they did not provide a budget or timeline.

“We are currently meeting with constituents and community leaders to evaluate and make a plan that faces the public safety threats we are facing,” she said in an email.

She did not respond when asked whether that plan includes a substation in the South Side Flats.

Gun violence there has spiked in some regards, but only over the past year, according to data collected by the Department of Public Safety.

From 2015 through 2020, police received an average of 34 calls for shots fired in the Flats each year. In 2021, calls for shots fired spiked to 72. The next closest year was 2015, when there were 45 calls.

In addition to calls for shots fired, the city also tracks aggravated assaults with firearms and non-fatal shootings.

Aggravated assaults with a gun are an attempt to cause serious injury with a gun. Non-fatal shootings are aggravated assaults that did result in injury. Homicides are in a separate category.

In terms of aggravated assaults with a gun, the neighborhood averaged between three or four incidents each year from 2015 to 2020. In 2021, there were six such incidents reported. The Flats saw 10 non-fatal shootings last year, up from an average of four each year prior.

Cupka, who owns Cupka’s II in the 2300 block of East Carson and Cupka’s on South 27th, lamented the lack of law enforcement taking place, particularly in terms of gun laws and open container laws.

“We have a $500 open container law not being enforced,” he said. “This is all part of it, the young kids drinking liquor on the streets, and all they are doing is taking the residents hostage over the weekends.”

Cupka, who sits on the neighborhood’s chamber of commerce, said chaos in the several block stretch between 13th and 18th streets has increased drastically over the years, and he claims that some businesses are shortening their hours because of the increased chaos and violence.

He said he believes the proliferation of underage drinking, drinking in the streets, and general disorder is contributing to an environment that fosters gun violence.

Attempts to cut down on traffic, loitering

The South Side has been a thorn in the side of city and police officials for years.

In spring and summer of 2021, police and city officials responded to an uptick in crime and dangerous conditions by instituting road closures and saturating the area with officers during high-traffic times.

It was similar to a tactic tried a decade prior as Councilman Bruce Kraus and other city and police officials ushered in the “Sociable City Plan.” Based on the ideas of the Responsible Hospitality Institute, the plan sought to, among other objectives, cut down on traffic and loitering, and add more specially trained officers to the area to work directly with bar and restaurant owners.

In 2015, the city extended parking meter charges along East Carson and certain side streets, extending the hours until midnight on certain nights. Business owners a year later said the changes were backfiring at their expense. The city sank more than $400,000 into the plan over 2015 and 2016.