>> Given the sky-high murder rate in Philly, it’s more than a little alarming that police think they have time to spend on this. <<
Not a student of the Giuliani School of Reducing Murder Rates are you? (Yes, the guy’s a liberal bum, and I’m not endorsing him, but he did do wonders for crime in NYC.) Such “broken-windows” law enforcement cut the murder rate by 70%.
Yes, actually I’m all for that. But closing down businesses that the community wants to patronize, and that are not causing any problems for non-patrons (i.e. unlike drug dealers, who have plenty of customers, but also generate a lot of violent crime that hurts non-customers) doesn’t strike me as having anything to do with “broken windows”. There’s no shortage of actual broken/boarded up windows in these parts of Philly, and no shortage of drug dealing, underage prostitution, child neglect, vandalism, etc. Spending time on THOSE crimes is likely to drive the murder rate down. Closing down tarot card readers isn’t.