The City of Rochester has introduced a major shakeup of its nuisance law, providing a panel where business owners and city neighborhoods can work out disputes before the city declares a business to be a public nuisance.
The law still has the city assigning points to troublesome businesses…now ten points for an incident involving a weapon or drug sales, and six points for other violations. Businesses accumulating 18 points in a year could be shut down as public nuisances. But after months of meetings with neighborhood and business associations, legislation sent to City Council by Mayor Lovely Warren makes changes.
The process is separated from the city code violations process. Those will be handled separately. The city’s Department of Neighborhood and Business Development will handle nuisance cases.
The new law sets up a waiver process. A business owner who works with the city on a plan to end whatever the nuisance might be has the points removed, assuming no more violations in a year’s time. A nine-member City Nuisance Advisory Board will be set up with representation from citizens and businesses in all four quadrants of the city. An owner deemed a nuisance after a fight or violent incident could ask for a hearing an seek to reverse a the nuisance declaration.
Finally, the city will now go to court before ordering a business shut down as a nuisance. That gives the business owners one more chance to defend themselves against closing.
City Council will consider the changes at committee meetings in a week’s time.