Police cleaning up area around 300 S. Main

SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake police are conducting a weeklong effort to clean up the area around 300 S. Main.

For the past several months, police have received many complaints from business owners and residents about criminal activity in the area. In an attempt to solve the problem, the police department is conducting an order-maintenance operation. The title of the effort comes from the "broken windows" theory that other municipal government leaders, such as former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, have subscribed to.

"If there's a building and it has a broken window, if it goes unattended there will soon be another broken window," said Salt Lake Police Lt. Melody Gray. "You begin with the small stuff so it doesn't become a bigger problem."

With that idea in mind, police have been enforcing "any violation of the law" in that area during their operation, which began on Monday. Everything from drug arrests to juvenile smoking, drinking, littering and jaywalking has been addressed, Gray said.

"We want to get the area back to a place that the people who work and live there can feel safe and have no intimidation factor," she said.

Through Wednesday afternoon, there had been 10 felony arrests, mostly for drugs, and 130 misdemeanor arrests and traffic citations handed out.

Police are conducting their enforcement operation two ways: by having a visible presence on the street, and through video cameras set up in the area. Signs notifying the public that the area is under video surveillance have been posted, Gray said.

The operation is scheduled to run through the end of the week.

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