Downtown Brookings businesses have seen an uptick in vandalism to their storefronts in recent years and are looking for ways to combat the issue.
  Business owners have been bombarded with vandalism to their storefronts—anything from vomit and urine in doorways on any night to shattered and broken doors and windows. Collaboration between multiple organizations hopes to bring change to this ongoing issue.
The owner of “Threads of Memories”, Emily Braun has experienced multiple instances of vandalism. Braun says she has dealt with a broken window in October 2021 and a shattered door in September 2022 since taking ownership of the business in January 2021.
“Between that, there have been countless pizza crusts, pizza plates, beer bottles, beer cups, straws, cigarette butts, vomit, and urine all in that doorway,” said Braun.
When asked, when the benefit of being located downtown is outweighed by the damages Braun said, “I’m kind of living that right now, all of the stuff I’ve had to clean up after is really disappointing.”
The owner of Party Depot, Cheryl Meyer, said that she has also experienced damage to her storefront with nearly every window in her store being broken at some point within the last couple of years. Meyer said that she has seen increased vandalism within the last three years.
Small business owners were one of the first groups to approach Chief Michael Drake when he took over as Chief of Police in August 2022, to talk about issues with vandalism downtown. Chief Drake says that there has been an increase in vandalism downtown in the past few years with a dip during COVID in 2020-2021 and then a steady increase after 2021.
“I would say there is some truth into the uptick in those types of crimes,” Said Chief Drake, “The one thing I can say is I think we’ve leveled it out a little bit.”
Chief Drake with the recent growth of population in the university and the city, crime tends to grow as well, and a lot of those crimes are misdemeanors like vandalism and petty theft.
When it comes to fighting this problem, there are various people and organizations involved. Someone at the forefront of the issue is Kristen Gjesdal, the executive director of downtown Brookings. “Just this week we had 3 different windows that had been broken out,” said Gjesdal.
One way the city is assisting this issue, is putting together a downtown master plan that will provide an analysis of the existing condition of downtown and create goals and objectives of what downtown could look like in the future.
“Ultimately the downtown master plan will guide redevelopment, and infrastructure and encourage public and private investment,” said Samantha Beckman, the assistant to the City Manager.
High-resolution cameras have been purchased to go downtown and will be connected with the police department dispatch center to access them and see activity downtown.
“We are piloting a camera program that can watch the front, back, and sides of busy areas in real-time,” Gjesdal said.
Lt. Terry Coon of the Brookings Police Department said that their officers conduct foot patrols at night downtown to increase police presence as well as foot patrols on weekend mornings to document damages and litter that occur in the downtown sector.
Gjesdal said that on top of the broken windows and doors, streetlights are commonly broken off from the base when people hang on them. Young trees planted along the sidewalk are ripped out and never replaced. Among those damages, a serious safety hazard is people trespassing on the roofs of buildings.
A common act of vandalism, breaking streetlights, is a crime that could lead to hefty fines and jail time. “I would say they are $5,000-$10,000, anything over $1,000 becomes a felony,” said Lt. Coon. “You’re talking about a serious property crime.”