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Crown Candy Will Get Speed Bumps After Years of Waiting | St. Louis Metro News | St. Louis

Published

11 months ago

November 3, 2023

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click to enlarge MABEL SUEN Folks line up around the block for a taste of bacon, ice cream and nostalgia at Crown Candy Kitchen. Andy Karandzieff has seen all kinds of chaotic driving in front of his restaurant, Crown Candy Kitchen. There have been people chasing each other at high speeds as they fly past a stop signs and a driver who hit a school bus. Once, two drivers decided to run a stop sign and collided in front of the historic Old North restaurant. “One of the cars rolled and just barely missed hitting our building,” Karandzieff says. But it wasn’t until this week that Karandzieff saw a vehicle strike a pedestrian. Karandzieff shared footage online — as he does with some of the crazier traffic violations his security camera captures. The video showed the driver of a black Chevy Malibu roll a stop sign and hit a man walking in the crosswalk on the other side of the intersection. “This is perfectly acceptable and expected in the city nowadays,” Karandzieff wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “This is the sad, sad state of our world. We have failed as a community.” This is perfectly acceptable and expected in the city nowadays This is the sad sad state of our world We have failed as a community pic.twitter.com/CiQNtl6Hdn— Andy Karandzieff (@kzieff) November 1, 2023
What heightened the response to the incident was how preventable it was. City residents have long bemoaned the way that a shortage of traffic enforcement has emboldened bad drivers. And Karandzieff has lobbied for the past five or six years for City Hall to do something about the increasingly reckless driving in the area surrounding Crown Candy, he says. It wasn’t until recently that his efforts gained some headway. Ward 14 Alderman Rasheen Aldridge sponsored a bill this fall to bring two speed bumps near Crown Candy. The measure passed the full Board of Aldermen and now awaits the mayor’s signature. After that, Aldridge says the Streets Department has committed to installing the speed humps sometime next spring. One will be right on Crown Candy’s block.”After me complaining and posting all these videos, we’re finally going to get it,” Karandzieff says. Before Aldridge, aldermen either didn’t respond to Karandzieff or their efforts got lost in the cogs of the city bureaucracy, Karandzieff says.Former alderman James Page, who represented the area before ward reduction shuffled borders and he lost his bid for reelection in March, got a bill passed that would have allowed for a speed bump on Crown Candy’s block. But Page was unseated before he could fully see the process through, Aldridge says. “After you pass the speed hump bills, they have to get signed and you have to allocate the necessary funds to actually pay for it to get installed,” Aldridge says. “(Page) never paid for it.” That level of detail is beyond Karandzieff, who just wants to see the city do something to keep his customers and neighbors to be safe. “Fortunately, now I have someone who will actually respond to me and check in on me after he sees these videos to say he’s still working on this,” Karandzieff says. The man who got hit earlier this week, Stephen Marx, was walking down North 14th Street when the still-unknown driver plowed him to the ground. The 71-year-old Marx was on his way to work at the store he owns down the street, Marx Hardware & Paint Co. When reached by phone on Friday, Marx was at work in his store; he says being there “beats sitting around at the old homestead getting bumps on your butt.” Marx was vague on what injuries he’d sustained as a result of the hit-and-run (though, he says, “corrective measures had been taken”). But he spared no words in decrying the “‘who cares’ attitude” of reckless St. Louis drivers. “It was probably an unlicensed, uninsured driver in a car with no license plates,” Marx says. “This is an epidemic here in town.”

Local News

Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

4 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

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Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

4 months ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

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St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

5 months ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

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The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

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