By Jennifer Glickel
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
DOWNTOWN — Lower Manhattan sees an influx of partygoers each night after dark, but with the partying has come an increase in crime, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The area has seen a 71 percent increase in felony assaults between July 12 and Aug. 8, including three shootings, the paper reported. According to information from the First Precinct and reviewed by the Journal, the spike in crime "can be directly attributed to nightlife in the First Precinct.”
One homicide took place outside of a nightclub in Lower Manhattan this summer on July 18 when an EMT who was denied entry into Greenhouse, a nightclub on Varick Street, got into a fight and was ultimately shot and killed.
The First Precinct has taken action to respond to the violence by instituting a "Late Tour Violence Reduction Plan,” the paper wrote.
Central to this plan is the addition of a Cabaret/Conditions unit in which a sergeant and five officers will work from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. These officers will be "responsible for monitoring all nightlife locations and addressing any associated crime, quality of life and traffic conditions,” First Precinct Captain Edward Winski said in a memo obtained by the Journal.
Whereas officers on this shift previously worked until 4 a.m., their shifts have been extended two hours until 6 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. Also, additional units such as narcotics, vice, and traffic will coordinate to "commence Nuisance Abatement proceedings against problematic bars/clubs,” the paper wrote.
