City shuts down notorious open air drug market in Downtown West for one week

Starting today, the city of St. Louis is temporarily shutting down a troubled park that has for months been home to an open air drug market. 

SLM previously reported on Downtown West residents’ concerns about the park, which has consistently been the scene of obvious drug activity and dealing throughout the day into the night. 

Mayor Cara Spencer said at a press conference Friday the park would be closed for one week “to clean it.” Spencer and spokesman Rasmus Jorgensen offered few specifics about what the week’s shutdown would entail beyond cleaning.  

“First and foremost, we’re making sure that folks that have been spending time there have access to resources to make better choices and to be housed in more productive ways,” Spencer said.  

One thing that won’t be involved is fences. 

Jorgensen said that law enforcement would enforce the park closure, which runs until Sunday. Signs alerting park denizens of the closure “for health safety” are now taped to every tree.

The eschewing of fences is notable because past mayors have erected fences at parks nearby City Hall, as well as on City Hall grounds, to stop the formation of homeless encampments. The park currently in question is just two blocks away from City Hall, though no one has been sleeping there at night. Under Spencer’s predecessor, Mayor Tishaura Jones, the fences around City Hall became a visible reminder of the quagmire of homelessness.  

The park that will be shut down starting today is situated between Soldiers Memorial Military Museum and the century-old Central Library, both tourist attractions. It’s across the street from an elementary school (St. Louis Voices Academy of Media Arts) and kitty-corner to a high school (Confluence Preparatory Academy). The offices of KMOX are across 13th Street as well.  

Despite all that, apparent drug dealers have done little to hide their activity, pulling up to the park, transacting exchanges with park denizens for 10 minutes or so then pulling away. 

A recent visit to the park prior to its closure found people there were not in a particularly talkative mood. When a reporter asked a group of about half a dozen what they thought of the signs, members of the group accused the reporter of implying they couldn’t read. 

Alderman Rasheen Aldridge, who represents a wide swath of downtown, says that “it’s clear as day” that drug dealing is going on. 

“The biggest thing I want the police to do is stop these drug dealers,” he says. “It’s obvious. It’s very clear that there are people that are selling drugs. I think if that is tackled, and they do a stakeout or something…that would be a help to what’s going on over there.”

As for the drug users, Aldridge says he hopes the city considers the “human element” in whatever they do and not just sweep everyone out of the park so they just move their operation a block or two away.

“It’s such a struggle, especially when people don’t want to go into housing,” he says.

Downtown West resident Denis Beganovic previously told SLM that every morning he sees Parks Department employees cleaning the park, which raises the question of what is new about the current week-long cleaning effort. 

Aldridge wondered the same thing. A few minutes after Spencer first announced the temporary closure on Thursday, he said to SLM: “It sounds like it’s just to clean it. Right now, I do see the Parks folks over there cleaning.”