Norfolk city leaders are struggling to come up with solutions to a recent gun violence that’s impacted the city, especially downtown.
The debate comes after a wave of gun violence in recent weeks, including a mass shooting outside a popular Granby Street bar that killed two people and injured three more. (RELATED: Virginia Reporter Killed in Norfolk Shooting)
Council member Courtney Doyle wants emergency action to ban guns from downtown bars and restaurants as well as require businesses to close at midnight, in an attempt to mitigate the danger to nighttime customers.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports:
“We also need to look at all bars and restaurants downtown to make sure they are compliant with their permits and if not, we need to shut them down,” Doyle said.
Other members of the council have suggested more long-term solutions. City Manager Chip Filer introduced the Newark Community Street Team, an organization that specializes in resolving community-based violence through conflict resolution and relationship-focused intervention. Filer said the group has been retained by the city to address community violence. (RELATED: Spilled Drink Led to Virginia Reporter’s Death)
Another council member, Thomas Smigiel, said that they were left struggling to come up with useful solutions, which many community members perceived as indifference to the violence.
“It is not that we don’t care — it just that we don’t know what to do…I think the issue is, sometimes we just don’t know what to do and that is why you guys are here,” Smigiel said to members of the Newark Community Street Team.
Democrats have dominated the City of Norfolk for decades. The last Republican president to win a majority of the city’s vote was Richard Nixon in 1972.