Hammond city council passes controversial gas station curfew

With a 7-2 vote on Monday, the Hammond Common Council passed a controversial ordinance requiring gas stations in the city to close between midnight and 5 a.m.

The vote marked the end of more than a month of public debate over the legislation, which proponents of which say it will help keep the city safe and reduce the burden placed on Hammond’s police department, while skeptics — including gas station owners and some city council members — have questioned its efficacy and raised concerns that it will negatively impact the city’s economy.

The ordinance was first proposed in July and came in response to a series of criminal incidents involving gas stations, including the June 25 fatal shooting of a 33-year-old Chicago man at the Luke gas station at on State Line Avenue, which took place around 2 a.m.

Two other recent incidents — an incident where a man brandished a knife during a theft on July 30 and a July 26 shooting over a botched drug deal — would not have been impacted by the curfew.

The ordinance allows gas station operators to seek an exemption from the curfew from the Hammond Board of Public Works and Safety. An amendment introduced clarified the criteria that will be used to assess whether a gas station should be allowed to operate overnight, including the level of security measures taken and whether the gas station’s owners cameras are enrolled in the Hammond BlueNET program.

The program, developed in partnership with the Georgia-based tech firm Fusus, allows residents and business owners to register surveillance cameras with the Hammond Police Department so that officers know where to seek video evidence of crimes. Cameras’ owners can also opt to have them integrated into the police department’s network, providing a live feed directly to law enforcement. Gary launched a similar partnership with Fusus — Operation Safe Zone — last summer.

Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said that the ordinance would help the city secure broader BlueNET participation among gas station owners, who he claimed have been unwilling to join the program without an incentive.

“We’ve got no pull; they don’t care,” he said. “They’re selling beef jerky 20 minutes after somebody gets shot.”

Sunny Tiwana owns five gas stations, three of which are in Hammond. Of those, two are currently open overnight, one located on Calumet Avenue and another on Columbia Avenue. He told the Post-Tribune that all of his businesses’ security cameras have been integrated into Hammond BlueNET.

Tiwana opposes the curfew, which he said will force him to fire around five employees who currently work nighttime shifts when the ordinance goes into effect on November 1. He is skeptical of the measure’s ability to prevent crime, and worries that by forcing gas station owners to leave cigarettes and other valuable merchandise unattended overnight it could have the opposite effect.

“People are gonna start breaking in. They’re going to see that no one’s at the store,” he said. “It’s going to be a mess at night.”

Tiwana plans to seek an exemption to the curfew, but feels the review process will prove to be arbitrary.

Councilwoman Katrina Alexander, D-At Large, made a motion to hold an additional public hearing on the amended ordinance, which would have delayed a vote on the legislation for two more weeks in order garner more public input.

McDermott called the move “ridiculous.”

“How many more people have to get shot before we do something about this?” he asked the council. “Let’s vote on this tonight.”

Alexander’s motion got the support of councilmen Mark Kalwinski, D-1st; Pete Torres, D-2nd; and Barry Tyler, D-3rd, but failed when the council’s other five members voted against it. The council voted instead to temporarily suspend normal meeting procedure, allowing members of the public a final opportunity to comment on the ordinance during the Monday meeting.

During the public comment period, Hammond Police Chief William Short urged the council to pass the ordinance in order to “send the powerful message that we stand united against his violence and crime.”

Tiwana, who spoke against the ordinance at the meeting, told the Post-Tribune that other Hammond gas station owners did not attend the meeting meeting because an opportunity for public comments was not scheduled in advance.

Tyler and Kalwinski were the only council members to vote against passage of the ordinance. Both expressed a desire to do find a solution to violent crime in Hammond, but questioned the wisdom of using a curfew to that end.

“I think part of what we’re saying is that you just want a way to hold these gas stations accountable, and I think that there’s ways to do that without impacting hours,” Tyler said.

Kalwinski suggested that Hammond should “embrace the relationship with with the business community and afford them an opportunity to self-correct,” rather than impose the curfew.