Help End Nuisance Businesses in Brewerytown
- Patrick Sherlock
- Apr 13
- 6 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Update: April 13, 2026
Thank you to all the community members who have taken action to share information about nuisance business operations in our neighborhoods. We’ve received a number of important questions ,and wanted to share an update on where things stand. This is a complex, ongoing process that involves coordination across multiple city agencies, and progress can take time, but your reporting, outreach, and continued engagement are making a difference as we work toward stronger enforcement and better outcomes for the community.
Nuisance Business Comment Responses and FAQs
What are we talking about here? What’s a nuisance business?
One that ‘interferes with the health, safety or welfare of its community,’ according to the Philadelphia Code. The city has a list of ‘nuisance behaviors,’ but common characteristics include:
Illegal drug activity
Non-permitted tobacco sales
Obstructing the street or sidewalk
Repeated violations of City regulations
If a local business is cited for illegal or nuisance activity, why are they open?
Enforcement takes time.
Reports must be made via 311 or 911, and then verified. Businesses are given 30 days after inspection to correct a violation, and then another 30 days if there is no change after re-inspection. Enforcement also requires coordination across agencies—some cases go to Police, others to Licenses & Inspections, and both work together on follow-up.
If a business receives three citations within 12 months, and declines to coordinate with the police, it can be given a ‘cease operations’ order. Businesses sometimes evade this by re-opening at a different address, or under a different name.
Are you trying to close down corner stores and convenience stores?
No. Convenience stores provide essential accessibility and products for neighbors.
While some nuisance businesses operate as corner stores or convenience stores, Park to Broad’s interest is in those businesses engaged in illegal activity, that earn multiple citations from the city, and fail to change their operations.
Illegal activity harms neighborhood vibrancy, and the viability of other businesses serving the community. Long-time business-owners and residents have reported that they are seeking to move, prospective businesses have declined to open nearby, and customers and employees tell us they do not feel safe because of the growth in nuisance business activity.
Is attempting to shut down certain businesses an exclusionary, or “NIMBY” response?
Escalating illegal activity, at specific businesses, is leading long-time businesses and residents to leave the corridor, and causing others to limit their hours. There have been declines in foot traffic and local spending around nuisance businesses, and more property vacancy. Inaction is creating a more-difficult environment to open and operate viable businesses.We want as many businesses as possible serving the community, accessible hours of operation, and steady foot traffic, so that everyone feels welcome, able to shop, and find opportunities to interact with their neighbors!
Have you communicated with these businesses?
Yes. Park to Broad team-members have contacted the owners of businesses subject to nuisance complaints, to discuss concerns, and help with solutions, without response.
By law, chronic nuisance businesses are expected to meet with city officials, and community members, to create an activity abatement plan. That has not happened.
What’s the solution?
Right now - enforcement often relies on continuous 311 and 911 reporting and follow-up from neighbors. We would like Mayor Parker to commit to a proactive, two-part strategy concerning illegal business operations: increase transparency around report tracking and enforcement; and direct city agencies to respond quickly and coordinate effectively to ensure businesses engaged in illegal activities do not negatively impact long-time neighborhood businesses and residents.
We are teaming up with Lower North CDC and Brewerytown Sharswood Neighborhood Coalition to host an online meeting next Wednesday evening, April 15 at 6pm, to hear from you - to add more ideas, experience, and expertise to this campaign. Sign up to attend at this link.
Take Action
The Park to Broad District team are aware of “nuisance businesses” whose operations have a negative impact on our community - typically due to connections with drug-dealing, violence, illegal and non-permitted operations, code violations, and anti-social behavior by customers.
Help us end nuisance businesses; read the op-ed at the bottom of this page, and take action:
Share your Concerns
Contact the community officials below, feel free to use this script:
Hello, my name is (your name) and I am a concerned resident/business owner at (share your address) in the 5th Council District. I am calling about (specific store name/address) in the neighborhood. I have had consistent negative encounters with the business that include…
(Include all that apply and add your own)
Regularly witnessing the sale of drugs, drug paraphernalia, and tobacco
Being harassed by the store’s customers
Excessive noise, especially late at night
Feeling unsafe walking by the store
Illegal parking and blockage of the traffic lanes
What new steps will the city take to prevent this business from harming our community?
When should I expect to see a change?
Please follow-up with me to share updates regarding this business
Officials to Contact
(215) 686-3442
Keith Dial, Manager (267) 496-1240
Outside of the 5th Council District:
Join us April 15
Thank you for your help strengthening our community!
Op-Ed, written March 23, 2026
We saw a ray of hope last week when contractors began disassembling the flashing sign at a 24-hour "convenience store" that has been the source of innumerable complaints from residents for drug-dealing, violence, illegal and unpermitted operations, code violations, and anti-social behavior. "It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad," my colleague lamented later the same day when we realized that the store (and flashing sign) was simply moving one block down, to flee the citations it earned at its prior address, and will continue victimizing our neighborhood.
The organization we lead supports economic development and the small business community in Brewerytown, Fairmount, Spring Garden and Francisville, but our efforts to grow the local economy have increasingly been hampered by the effects "nuisance businesses" have on our commercial corridors. Our business district has recently seen the opening of a new stationery shop, childcare centers, clothing retailers, a gift boutique, accounting firm, water ice stand, and new restaurants specializing in Filipino cuisine, Vietnamese coffee, and Sichuan food. All complement the hundreds of long-time neighborhood businesses that reliably help make the surrounding neighborhoods safe, vibrant, convenient, affordable, and pleasant places to live. Community businesses have been preparing to serve visitors for major 2026 celebrations, but their years of investment are being crowded out by 24-hour “convenience stores” that detract from the neighborhoods they’ve helped to build. In addition to the already established nuisance businesses in the district, there are plans for five more of these identical storefronts opening soon nearby.
Our peer community development organizations have confirmed this is a shared and growing issue for commercial corridors citywide. The Inquirer has written about the products and practices of these businesses as well, while local officials have told us the proliferation of these businesses has likely been caused by New York City's success limiting bad operators who are now moving south. At times we have been encouraged by the Philadelphia Police Department’s response to this challenge and by Mayor Parker’s initiatives to catalyze new businesses and job creation, but more often, we feel the City’s approach, from curfews to outright bans on categories of businesses, is disjointed and insufficient to address the problem. We see a lack of coordination and gaps in responsibility for enforcement, which means we are being outflanked and frustrated by a limited, but persistent set of actors who are turning our commercial corridors into spaces people avoid rather than flock to -- robbing communities of the opportunities that many others have labored to build.
Something needs to change. With our 2026 events now underway, we call on Philadelphia leaders to commit to supporting our commercial corridors, apply interventions that have proved successful in other cities, and mount a proactive and collaborative drive to close exploitative businesses citywide:
enforce existing laws and regulations;
hold property and business owners are responsible for operations that harm neighborhoods;
ensure cooperation between Law, Police, Health, Licenses & Inspections, and Commerce Departments so that bad actors cannot exploit loopholes and gaps between agencies.
We hope neighbors and allies will make a point of continuing to patronize the small businesses that bring positive activity to our community, and visit parktobroad.org/takeaction to lend your name to our campaign to end nuisance businesses in Philadelphia.
