Arrow Barbershop and Gathering Gallery both on Hargett St. to close.
East Downtown Raleigh continues to bleed shops.
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Wow just was getting my hair cut at Arrow in North Hills Friday, and I was thinking how I bet the one downtown probably isn’t doing well given the challenges of that area. And they’re doing well enough to keep expanding, so it really is the area that’s the problem. I feel like this will keep happening in a downward spiral until people actually clean up that part of downtown.
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Arrow said they’re leaving that location because of safety concerns
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I got my hair cut there a week ago and a very threatening homeless man came in and frightened the staff. Shame. I love that spot.
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Went to Young Hearts to try and find their bourbon (was told it was open despite converting to an event space apparently, a.k.a. dying) recently. In the time it took me to get out of my car in front of the entrance and try to open the door, I had to step around a homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk asking for money, move past some other homeless person, and see a group of “youths” yelling at each other across the street as if a fight was about to break out. I can’t imagine anyone trying to run a reasonably upscale business wanting to stay there. Apparently we’re just going to sacrifice sections of downtown because it’s not palatable to actually push these few people back to wherever they used to be. I think it’s a shame but here we are.
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Really hoping the Fayetteville Street revival effort can have some impact over here. It really sucks, because these are some gorgeous buildings. Then you walk by the area and see things like this (restored building next to the bus station)
The bus station already has private security. However, I unfortunately think I may be at my wit’s end here as well. A few bad crowds are ruining this for everyone else. 99% of the people at the bus stop are not creating problems and are just trying to go about their day.
Arrow is a well-run business. If they don’t think they can succeed here, I’m not one to question them. The city of Raleigh needs to do something here and have a plan in place before summer hits.
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Bleeding hearts will bleed the city dry. Maybe the DMV property can be the new transfer station with affordable housing on top. It will have a better connection to the BRT system too.
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The extra-frustrating factor of this is that I think that’s their first location, isn’t it? The boom in business when they first opened is the reason they’ve been able to open a half dozen other Triangle locations. Argh. 
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I think Cameron Village the Village District was their first location.
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Any time I tried to get an appointment at the Hargett one they seemed pretty booked up, so I don’t think it was for lack of business (unlike the t-shirt shop).
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Yea, I get my haircut there. It’s always close to 10 days booked in advance. This is annoying, it’s the only place that gives you a free beer while you get your hair cut. I wish this pissed off people in city leadership as much it does to us who live downtown. I’m getting tired of the stupid response of “homelessness or(unhoused, hilarious) are just part of living downtown”
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Moving homeless services away from the best city parks, shopping, and architecture is a totally valid response to this kind of thing. Those two types of uses shouldn’t be together.
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Well, I constantly hear that having Spring Break like conditions every Friday and Saturday night and being awakened at 3AM by people screaming outside my building, or having folks vomit on the property, or throwing bottles and cans in the bushes, or having loud traffic snarls that are routed by me is just part of living in my downtown neighborhood…and I hear that often from this community. What’s the difference really?
IMO, you can choose to shape your community with vision and action or you can just let it run amok. Silly me wants to see downtown shaped with purpose to create active urban neighborhoods that are about every day of the week, both day and night. I want them to be inclusive and safe. I want them to be first about the people who live and work in them, and not become throw-away destinations only for folks who drive to them on weekend nights.
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I got a haircut at the Hargett location on Friday and my barber told me that there were only 3 people on staff by that point and they couldn’t get anyone to apply. She said that hopefully it was just closed for the summer while they try to get more staffing.
Her own main complaint was that the parking spots Arrow leases are located next to the Lincoln apartments and the employees didn’t like walking that far.
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Contradicts other stated reasoning, although it’s believable if they really have to walk that far. It may just be both things.
I guess what I’m saying is if I’m Arrow, and I’m forced to close a location because my employees don’t want to work there… if the employees say it’s due to both the poor parking setup I’ve provided them and feeling uncomfortable due to crime, I’m going to choose the latter to cite to the press as the reason.
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Hah, that’s usually where I park to go there just because I don’t like parallel parking and it’s a whopping 3 blocks. Silly.
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That’s some good new information. Arrow stays open until 7:00 PM. So, their staff were probably walking 1/3rd of a mile in the dark past the bus station and past Moore Square. I can understand why they perceived the safety of that walk to not be good.
While it’s not in the same boat, I was walking back home from Person Street around 1:00 AM on Saturday night and a homeless guy was running at me from behind on the sidewalk yelling and asking for me to drive somewhere. I’m good enough at dealing with these situations. I’m tall and relatively physically capable. I yelled the guy off and he walked the other way. That said, if this happens to the average person who works at Arrow, I can see them not feeling safe or wanting to deal with that. Even on a non-regular basis. We need to light up that section of Person Street a bit more between Moore Square and New Bern.
On the positive side, Daylight Savings Time has changed that. Now it’s getting darker later. That said, it still seems like a peculiar place to lease parking from. There are a couple of closer and better options.
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Bruh… lmao. Homeless or not, bad social etiquette is bad social etiquette - doesn’t matter your situation in life, you simply cannot just do that shit to someone! You were more than right to yell him off.
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Oh, trust me, it was not the first and very likely won’t be the last. In my 3 years of living downtown, I’ve never had a non-homeless person approach me in the manner that this guy did. I agree that bad social etiquette is bad social etiquette, but the propensity that this happens from the homeless/mentally unstable crowd is significantly higher than it would be from anyone else.
It doesn’t happen too often. Typically only happens when the streets are mostly empty and when I’m out way later than I should be. That said, the area that I was approached was right near the walk that the people from Arrow take, and the reason I found it was relevant to this conversation.
I just want to reiterate that I have no problem with homeless people and I think the average Wake County resident could do a lot to educate themselves on the fact that the vast majority of them are not up to nefarious things. But, when some of them think it’s acceptable to run at you in the dark when you’re by yourself, that argument goes completely out the window for someone who doesn’t have the right kind of background/experience.
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The fact that you were WALKING and he asked you to DRIVE him somewhere is bewildering in itself.
FWIW, I have walked all over downtown and have never had such an experience. I did run into crime taped off places around Moore Square, but never anything that I perceived as aggressive toward me personally.
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