SPOKANE, Wash. – The monotonous hum echoing through the humble hallways of Jones Double Reed Products on Spokane’s East Pacific Avenue bears little resemblance to a symphony, but their work makes the music possible. .
“It’s just an oboe, a bassoon and an English horn. It’s a double reed, not a single reed,” said Jake Swartz, general manager and property owner. “We’ve been in this building since 1992.”
However, recently, running a business has become a headache as problems pile up one after another. Just before noon Friday, Swartz showed Nonstop Local human feces at the back door of his home, aluminum foil and lighters left behind from a night of drug use, and two separate locations where people had started fires.
During this tour of the property, Swartz kindly asked a woman who appeared to be homeless to leave his property. She was openly using drugs and left behind burnt aluminum foil and alcohol wipes.
“They always have some sort of foil thing and the flame goes off and on. So I always had to believe it was fentanyl. I couldn’t see anything else. People smoking weed. I don’t see any, but I just see things that are difficult,” Swartz said. “If I could focus more on my business, I would be more successful. If I were a business owner right now and I was looking for a place to put my business, Spokane wouldn’t be it. I can’t do that.” “
Swartz wrote and emailed Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown and the Spokane City Council. Mr. Swartz provided his perspective as a local business to the city and urged the City Council to listen to his thoughts on the city’s current homeless shelter system.
In other words, Swartz wants more accountability to ensure people in the system have incentives to actually improve their lives.
“It’s not compassion, it’s not love, it’s not kindness to let people continue like this and not give them a helping hand,” Swartz said.
Mayor Brown personally responded to this email by phone.
“(They) had a productive conversation,” Spokane city spokeswoman Erin Hutt said. “Together, they discussed the city’s financial challenges, goals related to connecting people to housing and appropriate services, and opportunities to partner on solutions moving forward.”
