The Atlanta City Council passed a ban Tuesday prohibiting businesses in Cascade Heights from offering check-cashing services and installing security features such as burglar bars, officials say.
The legislation came as part of council members Keisha Lance Bottoms’ “Invest in Southwest” initiative, which launched last year to promote community and economic investment in southwest Atlanta.
Bottoms said the idea behind the plan is to “improve aestetics of the neighborhood” and “draw interest in new development.”
Neighborhood suggestions drove legislation, she said.
“If an area looks like it has a high crime rate it attracts fewer new businesses,” Bottoms said.
Businesses in the Cascade Heights Neighborhood Commercial District are now prohibited from using burglar bars, steel gates and steel roll-down doors or shutters when visible from any public or private street. Interior security materials must allow 80 percent visibility into an establishment, the ordinance says. These materials must also be fully retracted during business hours.
While the security features such as burglar bars and steel roll-down doors may make it harder for businesses to be victimized by crime, critics say their appearance may also discourage potential new business and community investment and affect property values.
The ban on check-cashing services and security materials extends a 1982 Atlanta zoning ordinance that prohibited nightclubs, speakers and amplified music located outside enclosed permanent structures, park-for-hire facilities on surface lots, pawn shops and tattoo and body piercing establishments.
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