On Feb. 29, a group of kids were walking to their Long Island school when one spotted something strange along the wooded roadside. It was a detached human arm.
Authorities of course descended on the area, and cadaver dogs quickly found a second arm and a head. By the next day, the search had yielded another head and more body parts, this time from a woman.
Not coincidentally, other remains were found about 20 miles away. More grisly evidence would soon be discovered at a third site significantly distant from the first two crime scenes, indicating the perpetrators were in action across a broad swathe.
Police quickly traced the carnage to a house roughly equidistant from the dump sites. Inside, they found meat cleavers, butchers’ knives and enough blood to declare the structure no longer fit for human habitation.
The authorities quickly arrested the three people who lived there, along with a fourth individual who provided no permanent address. Yet, even with the abundance of evidence and the gruesome nature of the crime, the four would walk out of the police station a few hours later. They were not even required to post bail.
None of the four are known to have a restaurant connection. Nor did their victims. The remains belonged to a 55-year-old woman and a 53-year-old man, the latter a cousin of Apprehended Suspect #1.
Yet every operator should take note of what seems like the unbelievable plot twist of a bad cop show.
Reports are surfacing with increased regularity of restaurants opting to close rather than expose guests and staff to violent crime. In recent weeks alone, In-N-Out shuttered a unit for the first time in the chain’s 75-year history, a store in Oakland, Calif. Four Taco Bells in that city also powered down their kitchens for good. A Denny’s cooked its last Grand Slam there in January.
It’s not a West Coast phenomenon. Crime fears figure into the traffic downturn that had restaurants in Washington, D.C., throwing in the napkin at a rate of one per week by the end of 2023. A place called Pursuit called it quits after being robbed five times in as many months.
Similar reports are arising in seemingly every major American city. For restaurants, crime is morphing from a back-of-mind issue to a major front-and-center concern.
There’s no consensus as to why restaurants are feeling more vulnerable. Statistics show that violent crime is actually dropping in many areas.
Yet there’s no denying that the public—and operators—are feeling less safe.
That’s why the situation on Long Island should be as alarming to the industry as it is to those of us who call the suburb home. A middle-aged couple is murdered and hacked to pieces, their remains strewn across public parks and along the roadway to a school. And yet the suspected perpetrators are released in a matter of hours without even having to put up bail.
At issue is a reform movement that’s gone too far—and one the restaurant industry should try to undo as vigorously as any concerned parent might. Bail reform is clearly having unforeseen side effects that scream the need for correction.
It’s uncomfortable to oppose a worthy cause like trying to fix the centuries-old bail system. Statistics show the convention of releasing crime suspects if they put up a big sum of money is inherently prejudicial toward the disadvantaged. They lack both the cash on hand and the possible collateral to put up tens of thousands of dollars before they can be released until their trials.
New York is one of the states that has tried to change the situation for the better. As a result of those attempted reforms, only suspects of the most heinous crimes are held in jail until they’re tried. Unfortunately, that definition of heinous doesn’t extend to people suspected of hacking apart fellow humans and leaving the remains where the public will literally stumble upon them.
The issue is already drawing the attention of restaurateurs who’ve changed up their operations because of crime fears. New York-style cheesecake was made famous by Junior’s, a landmark Big Apple restaurant that’s still in operation. Once, it was the place to go after a night of bar hopping for a slab of cake. But the restaurant has shortened its hours to lessen the chances of being the scene of a violent crime.
Its third-generation proprietor, Alan Rosen, recently groused in the tabloid-y New York Post that he’s tired of bowing to the criminals.
“Enough!” Rosen told the paper. “There are no consequences. That’s part of the problem.”
He cited the recent instance of four young men being apprehended for allegedly beating two police officers in Times Square. All four were released without bail. As one exited the police station, he raised his middle finger to show what he thought of the city’s finest and their efforts to stop him (in fairness, it should be pointed out that the man was later cleared of any involvement in the crime).
Rosen noted that the catch-and-release policy forced on police by state or local law is part of the larger and even thornier issue of a new permissiveness toward crime. A number of retailers, from CVS to Target, do nothing more than file a report when a customer blatantly shoplifts. They argue that losing merchandise is better than someone possibly getting hurt in a confrontation with the exiting thief.
It's akin to a restaurant doing nothing when a customer sneaks out without paying his or her bill. Is the risk worth the disruption and the possibility of a physical confrontation?
Yet there’s a growing conviction, even in a heavily blue state like New York, that we’ve gone too far. Bail reform was a pet project of Gov. Kathy Hochul. Yet even she acknowledged that her efforts were never intended to let individuals like the suspected police attackers walk out with nothing more than an advisory to return at a later date.
Expect to hear more laments about lax law enforcement and permissive post-arrest policies in the months ahead. Better yet, protect your business by adding your voice to the protests. The industry needs to address the issue of crime before it grows into even more of a problem. It's right for the business and for society in general.