Man shot on Monroe Ave. leaves business owners worried for their safety

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Several business owners in Rochester are on edge after a man was shot in the area Monday night.

“This area is not safe at all, and it’s getting worse and worse day by day,” said Nick’s Super Store cashier Muhammad Ahsan.

Ahsan is just one employee who is scared for his safety and the safety of his customers.

“We need more police officers and somebody who could be here safety-wise because we have a lot of businesses on this whole avenue,” he said.

The same thing rings true for O’Callaghan’s Pub owner Tom O’Callaghan, who actually witnessed the shooting happen.

“We were right in the middle of dinner rush,” he said. “We had a full bar restaurant, people eating and drinking and dinner. A kid slams into the front door saying ‘help me, help me’ and he’s bleeding out of his foot and we were able to deter the shooter from coming in,” said O’Callaghan.

He said in the 18 years they’ve been in business, crime has never been this bad.

“The big concern is that it’s happening constantly down here,” he said. “Two weekends ago we had one down at the Monroe Avenue theater, one by the Renaldi’s, and they are just nonresponsive and not helping the city out in any way shape or form with policing their own properties.”

A concern the mayor said they’re working on this daily to make sure every part of the city is safer.

“We always want to try to be as equitable as we can with patrols,” said Mayor Evans. “Obviously we do know that we have a shortage of officers and we are always trying to find ways to use officers as we can to deploy them and that’s something that we’re going to absolutely take under advisement and see what we can do to help increase presence not just here, but throughout other business corridors in the city.”

The mayor was in the area as a part of this month’s “Mayor on the Block” walk. Currently, there are no suspects in custody for Monday night’s shooting. Anyone with information is asked to contact police.