District Attorney Stephen Zappala met with Pittsburgh city leaders and business owners on the South Side on Friday for a conversation on how to improve the neighborhood for businesses and residents.City Council member Bob Charland said more support from the district attorney is needed in the South Side to improve public safety and help businesses thrive.“I’ve been asking to meet with the DA for the entire time I’ve been in office,” Charland said. “I want to see the bars and restaurants and businesses on East Carson Street succeed. I’m incredibly pro-business. I think the neighborhood is pro-business as well. There are one or two really bad actors that kind of spoil the bunch for everyone else. And that’s where we’re at right now.”Zappala said he learned more about some continuing concerns and new issues arising on the South Side.“We’ve been looking at a couple of bars we’re interested in, two, specifically on Carson Street. But from the conversation today, it seems like they have they have more problems than I was initially made aware of,” Zappala said. He plans to meet with the bar owners connected to the concerns, underage drinking, poor behavior from patrons, and occasional violence.“I intend to meet with those bar owners and their lawyers, and we’re going to tell them that there’s certain conduct now that, as we move forward, it’s not going to be acceptable,” Zappala said. “The main issue is we have a couple of bar owners that are not being good, helping the community, helping the police kind of achieve the overall goal of public safety down here. The other issues that we raise are manpower issues, which the city is aggressively trying to address,” Pittsburgh Police Zone 3 Cmdr. Jeff Abraham said.Zappala said adding just 10 more officers to the South Side would make a big difference, and said he would be open to working with Allegheny County to source additional officers. That’s a strategy Abraham welcomes.“I would take any police officer at this point to help us out, and not just for the South Side, for my whole district. In Zone 3 alone, in the early 2020s, there was 115 police officers in this district. And as you heard today, I’m down to roughly 55,” Abraham said.Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 will continue following this developing story.
District Attorney Stephen Zappala met with Pittsburgh city leaders and business owners on the South Side on Friday for a conversation on how to improve the neighborhood for businesses and residents.
City Council member Bob Charland said more support from the district attorney is needed in the South Side to improve public safety and help businesses thrive.
“I’ve been asking to meet with the DA for the entire time I’ve been in office,” Charland said. “I want to see the bars and restaurants and businesses on East Carson Street succeed. I’m incredibly pro-business. I think the neighborhood is pro-business as well. There are one or two really bad actors that kind of spoil the bunch for everyone else. And that’s where we’re at right now.”
Zappala said he learned more about some continuing concerns and new issues arising on the South Side.
“We’ve been looking at a couple of bars we’re interested in, two, specifically on Carson Street. But from the conversation today, it seems like they have they have more problems than I was initially made aware of,” Zappala said.
He plans to meet with the bar owners connected to the concerns, underage drinking, poor behavior from patrons, and occasional violence.
“I intend to meet with those bar owners and their lawyers, and we’re going to tell them that there’s certain conduct now that, as we move forward, it’s not going to be acceptable,” Zappala said.
“The main issue is we have a couple of bar owners that are not being good, helping the community, helping the police kind of achieve the overall goal of public safety down here. The other issues that we raise are manpower issues, which the city is aggressively trying to address,” Pittsburgh Police Zone 3 Cmdr. Jeff Abraham said.
Zappala said adding just 10 more officers to the South Side would make a big difference, and said he would be open to working with Allegheny County to source additional officers. That’s a strategy Abraham welcomes.
“I would take any police officer at this point to help us out, and not just for the South Side, for my whole district. In Zone 3 alone, in the early 2020s, there was 115 police officers in this district. And as you heard today, I’m down to roughly 55,” Abraham said.
Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 will continue following this developing story.
