SPOKANE, Wash. - The monotonous hum booming through the humble hallway of Jones Double Reed Products on Spokane's East Pacific Avenue hardly resembles a symphony - but their work makes the music possible.
"Just oboe and bassoon and English horn. Double reads, not single reads," General Manager and Property Owner Jake Swartz said. "We've been here since 1992 in this building."
But recently, conducting his business has become a headache amid a crescendo of recurring problems. Friday before noon, Swartz showed NonStop Local human feces by his back door, tin foil and lighters left from overnight drug use, and two separate locations where people started fires.
Amid this tour of the property, Swartz kindly asked a woman who appeared to be homeless to leave his property. She was openly using drugs and left behind burned tin foil and alcohol wipes.
"They're always with something that looks like a foil, and there's a flame that comes and goes. So, I got to believe it's always fentanyl. I don't see anything else. I don't see people smoking weed. I just - I just see the hard stuff," Swartz said. "If I'm able to focus more attention on my business, it's going to be more successful. If I was a business owner right now that was looking at a place to put my business, Spokane would not be it. It can't be."
Swartz wrote and email to Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown and the Spokane City Council. Swartz offered the city his perspective as a local business in the city and urged the council to listen to his thoughts on the current city homeless shelter system.
Swartz, in short, wants more accountability to ensure people in the system have incentives to actually better their life.
"This isn't compassion, it's not love, it's not kindness to let people keep going this way and not have an out for them," Swartz said.
Mayor Brown responded the email with a personal phone call.
"[They] had a productive conversation," City of Spokane Spokesperson Erin Hutt said. "Together, they discussed the City's financial challenges, goals related to connecting people to housing and proper services, and opportunities to partner on solutions moving forward."
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