Downtown Merchants Tell of Vagrant Trouble : Business: The homeless, drug dealers and mentally ill make their life miserable, say those trying to stay in business, but no one has any easy solution.

Two dozen downtown merchants met Friday afternoon to trade complaints about drug dealers, addicts, the mentally ill homeless and vagrants who they said are driving away business.

The merchants proposed no solutions to the problem, but an aide to Mayor Maureen O’Connor said businesses should appoint representatives to meet with police and city officials in an effort to resolve their concerns.

“The mayor encourages business people to get together to discuss their problems,” said Sal Giametta, an assistant to the mayor. “I think the next step is to form a committee to address these concerns and see what the city can do to help you.”

Capt. Nancy Goodrich of the San Diego Police Department said vagrants and others arrested downtown for misdemeanor violations usually tear up their citations and ignore court summonses because they know the jails are crowded and they will be released.

Some chronic lawbreakers have more than $100,000 in misdemeanor warrants, she said.

“I feel for you,” Goodrich told the merchants. “There are no easy solutions.”

Goodrich said police “encourage” vagrants and petty thieves to move out of the area, but she compared that effort to “sticking your finger in a balloon; you just displace air and the problem remains the same.”

In recent months, merchants have increasingly voiced concern about the extent of blatant drug activity and other crime and the growing number of mentally ill homeless who panhandle and accost passers-by.

The merchants who met Friday included some members of the Central City Assn. They offered a long list of stories about drug dealers, addicts and the “professionally homeless” hanging out along Broadway and nearby streets downtown. They met at Frenchy Marseilles, a restaurant that is going broke because its customers have been driven away by the transients, according to its owner.

Most of the complaints concerned drug sales, car break-ins, vandalism, burglaries and homeless who, the merchants said, threaten customers and shop employees and sleep in doorways each night and leave vomit, urine, feces, food, broken bottles, cardboard boxes and other garbage on the sidewalks.

“Oh, man, drugs are everywhere down here. It’s rampant,” said Tom Salazar, a sales clerk at Freedom Guitar, in the 1000 block of 8th Avenue.

Heroin dealers carry the drug in small balloons in their mouths as they walk the streets, making quick sales, but when police approach, the dealers swallow the balloons with a swig of soda to avoid being caught with the goods, said Sylvester Bowen, Freedom Guitar’s owner.

“It happens all day. We watch it and there’s nothing we can do. The dealers and the bums are discouraging business,” Bowen said. “It’s gotten really bad in the last year.”

Carla Bassi, a designer at Broadway Florists, in the 800 block of Broadway, said the flower shop has had to close one of its entrances because of the swarms of flies drawn to the doorway where “professionally homeless” men and women sleep, urinate, defecate and leave food.

“We clean it out every morning with bleach, but it doesn’t work,” Bassi said. “It’s disgusting. They’re animals. The customers don’t want to walk over that.”

Also, drugs dealers hide their heroin balloons in planted pots outside the shop and their customers come by to pick up the goods, Bassi said.

Diane Reeder, co-owner of the House of Comics, also in the 800 block of Broadway, said vagrants have threatened her and her customers.

“We’re losing a steady number of customers, including some who have come for years,” Reeder said.

Several merchants said they are being driven out of business or are considering moving.

Frenchy Marseilles, a restaurant at the corner of 8th Avenue and C Street, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization Monday. The owners said they sought federal bankruptcy protection, in part because of transients and criminals driving away customers.