Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Business network to prevent crime

Crime watch

Jeff O'Brien / Staff

Dawn Marie, community manager of Allanza at The Lakes, is also the coordinator of the Southwest Business Crime Watch, which is comprised of approximately 50 local businesses.

For the past two years, a network of local businesses in West Valley and southwest Summerlin has been working with Metro police to prevent crimes and raise awareness about suspicious activity.

Known as the Southwest Business Crime Watch, the network is comprised of approximately 50 businesses and is coordinated by Dawn Marie, community manager at the Allanza at The Lakes apartment community.

It all adds up to a busy schedule for Marie — Allanza at The Lakes is a 900-unit apartment complex — but she became passionate about crime prevention after taking over the complex in June 2007.

Capt. Jim Dixon and Metro crime prevention specialist Carol Ferrante were also instrumental in the formation of the group, which holds quarterly meetings at Metro’s Enterprise Area Command at 6975 W. Windmill Lane.

The geographical boundaries of the crime watch generally follow the coverage area of the Enterprise substation, Marie said, and local businesses often spot criminal activity before it moves into residential areas.

“Communication is the most important aspect,” she said. “We want to have a network where if a business owner sees something going wrong, they can let other businesses and Metro know what’s going on. Starting an information tree can also prevent crime sprees from occurring.”

Almost all of the businesses in the Vons shopping center on the corner of Durango and Desert Inn roads have become involved, Marie said, in addition to other stores in the Boca Park shopping center at the intersection of Charleston and Rampart.

The Las Vegas Athletic Club at the intersection of the Beltway and Flamingo Road also plans to participate.

At each quarterly meeting, guest speakers are brought in to discuss topics ranging from car break-ins to new hand signals being used by gangs. Representatives from Nevada Child Seekers and Crime Stoppers have also made presentations.

Metro’s gang unit recently taught the crime watch members how to look out for graffiti on their properties and spot differences in the patterns.

“Tagging is what gangs do to mark their territory, as opposed to a kid out there with a can of spray paint trying to be creative,” Marie said. “They are both illegal, but one is more malicious than the other.”

In terms of criminal trends in the area, Marie said that vehicle break-ins are usually the most common along with “break and dash” incidents involving local businesses.

“Stores have so many windows and you can see what the merchandise is,” she said. “People break the glass, grab what they can and take off. That’s a thing we’ve had some businesses complain about.”

Having adequate lighting, Marie said, is a key in preventing store break-ins.

“We’ve had issues with some of our smaller businesses not having enough lighting around their store or in the parking lot,” she said. “If you have lights shining on your business at night, people will be able to see someone breaking in and see what’s going on.”

Who pays for such upgrades depends on the shopping center and the landlord, but Marie said the Vons center has been vigilant in maintaining its store and parking lot lighting.

The vigilance should not be limited to preventing nighttime crimes, Marie said.

“If business owners are seeing teenagers hanging out on their property when they should be in school, we are encouraging them to call 311 so that either Metro or CCSD school police can investigate,” she said.

The effort to increase awareness has been paying off. Robberies — both armed and unarmed — have gone down in the southwest area by approximately 29 percent over the last three months compared to the same period last year, said officer Chris Johnson of Metro.

“We are very pleased with those numbers,” Johnson said.

Organizations such as the Southwest Business Crime Watch are pivotal in the Las Vegas valley, Marie said.

“We as a community don’t know everything that is going on all the time,” she said. “Metro is a fountain of information that we don’t utilize enough.”

Businesses in the southwest area that are interested in joining the Southwest Business Crime Watch can contact Dawn Marie at 363-8033 or [email protected].

Jeff O’Brien can be reached at 990-8957 or [email protected].

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