Duluth city and business leaders hope ‘Get Downtown Week’ helps improve safety

DULUTH, Minn. (Northern News Now) — It’s Get Downtown Week in Duluth, and some are hoping it will help make the area safer.

Get Downtown Week is a weeklong event meant to bring more people back into the heart of the city and visit more than 30 local businesses offering special deals.

“A deal is a deal,” said Ray Mindestrom, the assistant taproom manager and Blacklist Brewing. “People want to look for happy hour prices and things like that, and we don’t always have something like that available.”

The event has often been named a success for Blacklist Brewing, who saw more customers walk through their front door since the start.

“It does drive some of those later business customers to come in,” Mindestrom said. “Closing time for other places is our open time for us. We see increases with a lot of those people.”

However, a vigil currently on West First St. and panhandling throughout downtown, has been causing some Duluthians to question how safe it is to visit the area.

“There’s a lot of awareness that there’s certain places you can go, and certain places you can’t go,” Mindestrom said.

Downtown Duluth President Kristi Stokes made it clear that she understands people’s concerns, but hopes Get Downtown can actually increase the number of visitors to the area and act as a solution.

“This week is a good example of just trying to get more traffic flowing in the area,” Stokes said. “A larger amount of people and just an active sidewalk and active spaces, that does improve the safety.”

Stokes confirmed that Duluth Police and the Clean & Safe Team have been upping patrols in the downtown area recently. The city even offers storefront revitalization grants so they can help brighten up the area.

“The beauty of this particular location is that we have so much lighting outside already,” Mindestrom said. “The NorShore is lit up at night, so we are one of the brighter spots on the block.”

Get Downtown Week runs through Saturday, for a full list of the businesses involved click here.

Click here to download the Northern News Now app or our Northern News Now First Alert weather app.

Copyright 2024 Northern News Now. All rights reserved.