RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — Inside a restaurant tucked away in Riviera Beach, workers say what has changed on the outside is drastic.
"People, sometimes they'd be afraid to come out. But now since it's cleaned up, they come out," said Amanda Smith, a restaurant employee at Intercoastal Seafood and Chicken.
Last fall, the Riviera Beach Police Department launched an initiative to crack down on corner and convenience stores for eyesores and safety hazards. Stores were cited for broken security cameras, broken lights, and boarded up windows.
By targeting blight, police said they've been able to root out the bigger problem of crime.
"Some of the stuff they sell within the stores harbors crime. Some of the things they have like illegal gambling machines, harbors crime," said Maj. Travis Walker with the Riviera Beach Police Department.
Police said some of the corner stores that have code issues have been meetup spots for drug deals and worse.
Since last fall, a spokesperson for the police department told WPTV that two stores have been shut down for not being up to code compliance. A third could soon be added to the list.
Stores were given a 60-day grace period before receiving citations. City officials said a team went out and offered free evaluations to determine issues.
Since the crackdown began, Riviera Beach police said 911 calls have dropped at the majority of the convenience stores they've monitored.
Data from the police department shows Super Meat Market on President Barack Obama Highway had nearly 80 911 calls last year. So far this year, the amount has fallen by half.
Calls at five out of nearly 15 stores increased this year.
Walker said because they aren't bogged down responding to fights and loitering complaints, it frees them up to deal with actual emergencies.
"We were finding (is) that officers were responding at alarming rates at these stores," said Walker. "It's not one officer. It's two officers because one can't go by themselves...for stuff that we can fix."
Pete Connors, a resident, said he doesn't mind the riff-raff being pushed out of the city, but he is worried about what's moving in.
"It's a lot of big businesses moving in. [A] lot of high rises moving in and it's kind of displacing the people who live here," Connors said.
Inside the Chicken and Seafood spot on Avenue E and West 14th Street, employees applaud the initiative to clean up the streets.
"Whatever the police are doing, continue doing it. Continue doing it," Amanda Smith said.
