Fresno Business Owners Demand City Action on Break-Ins, Homelessness

Colorado Grill's front door is still boarded up. The Fresno restaurant has been broken into four times in three years, and manager Robert Watson said the most recent incident, early Saturday morning, barely registered as a surprise anymore.

"It happened for the fourth time. So, it wasn't nothing shocking. I just wanted to know what did they take?" Watson said. Repairs, he noted, are "not cheap," and his restaurant is far from alone.

Across the city, frustration among Fresno business owners has reached a breaking point, with some relocating entirely rather than absorbing the repeated costs of vandalism, break-ins, and the daily disorder they attribute to the city's unhoused population. The Grocery Outlet at Blackstone and Ashlan avenues closed and moved to Willow and Nees avenues after multiple break-ins. Jeb's Blueberry Hill, a popular breakfast spot, abandoned its location at Blackstone and Dakota avenues in late 2024, relocating to Pollasky Avenue and Fourth Street in Old Town Clovis after co-owner Ruby Martinez contended with drug activity, vandalism, fires, and attempted break-ins.

"I get to sleep at night now," Martinez said.

Near downtown, La Elegante Taqueria owner Able Arenas described unhoused individuals routinely gathering outside his business, leaving litter and, at times, lighting warming fires. "Some are even causing warming fires," Arenas said.

Watson said that when he has tried to address people outside Colorado Grill, the situation has turned threatening. "Sometimes it gets to the point where they want to fight me," he said. "So I try not to put myself in that way. And then when we call the cops, they tell us just leave them alone or let them go or just let them roam around." Fresno police were asked for citywide break-in totals since the start of the year but had not responded at publication time.

The Blackstone Merchants Association formalized the corridor's grievances in a petition submitted to the city with more than 60 signatures, representing owners of hotels, auto dealerships, restaurants, and other properties. The petition calls on Fresno to compel homeless advocacy organizations to stop dropping people off on Blackstone Avenue and to expand who can issue trespassing citations. Association President AJ Rassamni said he has personally witnessed organizations relocating people to the area and photographed it. He declined to name the group publicly, though pictures submitted alongside the petition show Poverello House vehicles distributing resources to people in parking lots.

City Councilmember Nelson Esparza, whose district covers much of Blackstone Avenue, acknowledged the merchants' frustrations while pointing to the complexity of the problem. "This really goes to the broader frustration that we, the community, have and we at city hall have despite all the investments we've made and despite the improvement that we have seen in the homeless population and decreasing it and housing folks," Esparza said. He supports authorizing code enforcement officers to issue trespassing citations and is examining whether that authority is legally permissible. He added that he is receiving conflicting information about whether nonprofits are relocating people and noted that the city has no direct control over those organizations, though he has engaged them in conversation.

Mayor Jerry Dyer, speaking on "Great Day" last week, cited five years of shelter placements as evidence of progress: "We've placed over 11,000 people in shelter now, and over half of those have gone on for a safe exit. And about three-fourths of those have gone into permanent housing." For Watson, with a plywood door still facing Fresno's streets, those numbers have yet to change what he sees every morning when he opens up.