Over the summer, crime from late-night crowds (midnight to 3 a.m.-ish) has hit a boiling point. On July 5, a fight in a parking lot led to five people getting shot; 22-year-old Caylen Fritz died from his injuries. There were two other shootings in June, one resulting in another death.
In late July, Deep Ellum business owners and Dallas City Council Member Jesse Moreno met at St. Pete's Dancing Marlin to discuss urgent safety improvements. One idea was to bring in a consultant who manages a successful entertainment district in another city. Another was to impose a strict midnight curfew for the whole area, something that most business owners winced at.
“If we were forced to close at midnight, we would either have to completely close our business or restructure it,” said Allen Falkner of The Nines.
While there is no curfew, the city has gone back to the old practice of closing off some roads in Deep Ellum at 10 p.m. to reduce cruising and allow cops to patrol more strategically. DPD says the street closures on Friday and Saturday nights on Main, Elm, Indiana, Malcolm X and Monument Streets will continue for the foreseeable future.
The announcement caused some chatter on social media from patrons and business owners alike, who felt that some media coverage was misleading. People misinterpreted headlines that Deep Ellum as a whole would be closing down at 10 p.m. rather than just a few streets.
"I was really thrown off by what appeared to be a targeted PR campaign aimed at sharing the 10 p.m. street closures in a way that made it seem like Deep Ellum was shutting down around 10 p.m.," said Mike Ziemer, who opened his venue, Puzzles, on Main Street last week.
Street closures in Deep Ellum are nothing new. The city last enacted the policy in 2019, but this summer, they pushed that timetable back to midnight because of the negative effect the closures had on businesses; patrons can't easily access bars and have to walk a long way to get to and from their cars.
While he supports the new measures, Cliff Edgar at Brick and Bones said that having those two extra hours from 10 p.m. to midnight helped his business, which is popular for its late-night kitchen. "Street closures are not helping with crime, and it's a deterrent to customers," he said.
"If anything, it is just keeping people from coming to support the businesses," Ziemer said. "Construction is already making traffic and parking hard enough, this just makes it worse."
But, for most, this is business as usual, especially in the summertime.
"The street closures at 10 p.m. have been happening for years during the summer," said Jeff Beihler, who owns the now-closed restaurant and bar CheapSteaks, which is reopening as a music-focused venue, Dusty's. "They [street closures] don't really solve the root issues, but they do make things a bit easier for the officers on duty."
Additionally, as we reported this week, Rodeo was locked out by its property management company on Tuesday, but reopened on Wednesday and is open for the foreseeable future. Follow Rodeo's Instagram page for daily and weekend events.
