Downtown patrons up to no good will soon have extra eyes on them.
The Rio Nuevo board, at the request of the Tucson Police Department, unanimously voted to pay for cameras that can capture license plates of those drag racing on side streets or four-wheeling on sidewalks, and any other downtown activity.
The board will provide $40,000 for the cameras and voted to extend its current contract for off-duty police to patrol downtown at the rate of $60,000 per month for the next year.
Information about where the cameras will be placed and when they will be installed was not immediately available.
Public officials have been discussing how to combat street racing, with Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar telling the Tucson City Council that speeding has become a bigger issue since the pandemic, when police relaxed speeding enforcement.
That so-called toxic car culture quickly led to an increase in reckless speeding and disruptive late-night drag racing and street takeovers where racers blocked off all directions of an intersection so they can do dangerous stunts, Kasmar told the council last fall.
Street takeovers are designed by organized racing groups that use social media to remain anonymous, Kasmar said. The social media platforms attract younger people to the takeovers.
Rio Nuevo supports restaurant updates
In other business, at its recent meeting, Rio Nuevo also voted to provide a $108,000 grant plus a $108,000 loan to the owners of Zemam’s Ethiopian restaurant to finish its international dining and entertainment district on Broadway, near Treat Avenue.
An additional $30,635 was pledged to the owners of Miss Saigon to add a pet-friendly patio area to the restaurant on the first floor of the Tucson Electric Power building, 88 E. Broadway.
Miss Saigon owners will add a cherry blossom tree to the new location at 88 E. Broadway because it represents a "sign of rebirth."
The family-owned Vietnamese restaurant will open on April 8.
Miss Saigon, which Vo Ma and Kim Nguyen opened in 2000 near the University of Arizona campus on North Campbell Avenue, has been downtown since 2012 when the family took over the small Monkey Burger space at 47 N. Sixth Ave. That restaurant will move into the TEP building, taking up the space that had been home to MiAn Sushi, which closed in 2019.
The family also has a location at 250 S. Craycroft Road and they converted their Miss Saigon Bar and Grill at 4650 W. Ina Road into a commissary to serve all their restaurants.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department obtained video of street racers and "drifters" in the intersection of Raytheon Parkway and Aerospace Parkway last weekend. Law enforcement will be reviewing evidence related to street racing, arresting violators and seizing vehicles used in these types of incidents, the sheriff's department said.
