Delinquent immigrants from two troubled Brooklyn shelters have caused a steady wave of shoplifting, fights and other shenanigans in a quiet waterfront neighborhood, forcing some merchants to take drastic measures.
Business owners and employees told The Washington Post they have lost business and been plagued by theft since the construction of two Clinton Hill immigrant shelters at the intersection of Hall and Ryerson streets, one of which was the site of a deadly shooting over the weekend that was suspected to be gang-related. The shelters house about 4,000 people.
Key Foods supermarket on Myrtle Street has hired security guards for the first time and now asks shoppers to let go of their backpacks when entering the store, store manager Henry Friars said.
Steven Yeung of the New York Post
“We never got shopper bags, but now we’re getting document bags too,” Freyas, 23, said this week.
“The situation is strange right now.”
Migrants, some still wearing their shelter identification, are stealing items such as beer, deli meat, toothpaste and shampoo, Friers charged.
The controversial shelter, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, had been drawing complaints from residents even before back-to-back shootings on Sunday left two people dead and a third seriously injured.
The shelter at 47 Hall St. is set to open in July 2023, followed by the nearby site at 29 Ryerson St. in April of this year.
Neighbors argued that cramming thousands of people into two shelters a block apart would cause overflow problems, a frustrating reality that was expressed by business owners and employees who spoke with The Washington Post on Wednesday.
Melissa Wood, 41, who works at Stroh Management self-storage in a huge warehouse on Hall Street, said occupancy at the business had fallen by 20% since it opened because customers were scared when migrants parked their cars there.
Wood said the company had hired weekend workers to man the loading docks to reassure customers they were safe.
“Some of our customers come into the store and then just walk out without going inside,” she says.
“We make sales over the phone and lock the customer in, but when they arrive and see the neighborhood, they don’t want to get involved in anything. They worry that they won’t be safe and that their belongings won’t be safe.”
Those safety concerns were not unfounded, at least for one of Woods’ coworkers, she said.
“One of our staff was attacked because we asked him to take food from the loading dock just as the migrants were feasting,” she alleged.
Shoplifting is a regular problem at the Myrtle Avenue deli where Alex Lexan, 40, works.
Lexan said he catches two or three migrants a day wearing collars indicating they are staying at a nearby shelter, and steals their beer, soda and candy.
“When they know I’m busy, sometimes they get away with anything,” he said.
“If you go back and look at the footage, you can see they’ve stolen something. They’re putting beer, candy, soda in their pants. Or they’re buying something and then trying to put candy in their bag.”
When Lexan caught the thieves, some of them said they wanted to fight.
“They’re all talk,” he said. “They go out and they scream, ‘Fuck you.'”
“I’m tired of calling the police so I’m not going to call them anymore.”
