Business Owners Speak Out
This week in Burlington, downtown business owners took the extraordinary step of publicly calling out their own city government. In a strongly worded letter to Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, they described the worsening conditions on Church Street—rampant theft, disorder, vagrancy, open drug use—as not just an inconvenience, but a direct threat to their livelihoods. Storefronts are emptying. Longstanding shops are closing or relocating. Foot traffic is down. The consequences of lawlessness are no longer theoretical—they’re visible in lease agreements, tax assessments, and boarded-up windows.
The Cost Doesn’t Disappear
This moment illustrates a deeper pattern in Vermont: government has not eliminated consequences for bad behavior. It has redistributed them—from those who engage in the behavior to those who don’t.
Whether it’s a syringe on a playground, an unpaid cartload walking out of a store, or a tent pitched on a sidewalk, the common thread is clear: the cost is real, and it does not vanish simply because the state has deprioritized enforcement. It is passed along—to homeowners, business owners, taxpayers, emergency responders, parents, and anyone attempting to live responsibly under the law.
Compassion Without Containment
The policy shift has been framed as “compassion,” but compassion without containment creates imbalance. Under this new model, individuals engaging in theft, vandalism, or public drug use are protected from meaningful consequence—while law-abiding citizens absorb the fallout. It is no longer about personal accountability. It is about collective burden.
Needles, Theft, and Who Pays
Take the issue of discarded syringes. In past years, individuals caught using or disposing of drug paraphernalia illegally could face charges. That system discouraged the behavior and clearly defined responsibility. Today, under Vermont’s harm reduction approach, syringes litter parks, sidewalks, bus stops—even private property. Municipalities like Burlington now operate hotlines and online reporting systems for discarded needles.
Even the reporting system—whether it’s an online platform like SeeClickFix or a staffed hotline—comes with a price tag. Taxpayers are funding the infrastructure, staffing, and follow-up for problems caused by behavior the state has chosen not to deter.
And once a needle is reported? It is often retrieved not by trained hazmat crews, but by on-duty city staff—garage attendants, park workers, or DPW personnel. These workers are paid for their time, but not as biohazard specialists. While they’re retrieving syringes, they aren’t repairing playgrounds, patching potholes, or maintaining city property. Every pickup is time and service taken from the rest of the public—yet another hidden cost of consequence redistribution.
If that needle ends up on private property, the homeowner often bears the full burden. Sometimes the risk is legal, financial, or even physical. If a child is injured or a visitor is harmed, the liability may fall on the person who owns the lawn, not the person who discarded the needle.
This is the redistribution of consequences in practice.
The same logic applies to retail theft. Across Vermont, shoplifting incidents have increased while prosecutions have decreased. Several police departments have acknowledged informal policies directing officers not to engage in low-level retail theft cases. Store staff are told not to intervene. In this environment, losses climb, insurance premiums spike, and businesses either raise prices or close their doors.
No Debate, Just Decline
When exactly was there a public debate on whether law enforcement should pull back from prosecuting theft, drug activity, and street crime? The truth is, there wasn’t one—at least not in the form of a transparent statewide policy discussion. Instead, the shift happened through a patchwork of quieter decisions: city councils influenced by “defund the police” activists, state’s attorneys who decline to prosecute, and judges who issue little or no punishment in the name of equity. None of these moves were widely debated or openly approved by voters—but together, they have reshaped how (and whether) justice is administered in Vermont.
Shifting Accountability Without Consent
This shift in responsibility was never formally presented to voters. Yet taxpayers are now being asked to carry both the financial and moral weight of that decision.
Government’s core obligation is public safety. Not moral signaling. Not image management. Not public relations campaigns about empathy. Safety. When it chooses to forgo enforcement in the name of compassion—but provides no alternative system for accountability—it does not eliminate harm. It transfers it.
There is nothing compassionate about allowing addicts to overdose in bus shelters or leaving families to clean up drug paraphernalia outside their homes. There is nothing equitable about shielding chronic shoplifters while surrounding communities lose access to essential goods and services. There is nothing democratic about redefining justice and enforcement priorities without public input or consent.
Public Safety Is Not Optional
Vermont may pride itself on progressive policies, but the redistribution of consequences is not a policy. It is an abdication. It does not serve justice, and it does not serve the public.
This is not a call to return to punitive extremes. It is a call for balance. When consequences are removed from the person engaging in harmful behavior, they do not disappear. They land somewhere else. Right now, they are landing on everyone else.
If the legislature will not restore that balance, then the electorate must. Because the price of unchecked compassion is not paid by the state—it is paid by the citizen.
Dave Soulia | FYIVT
You can find FYIVT on YouTube | X(Twitter) | Facebook | Parler (@fyivt) | Gab | Instagram
#fyivt #VermontPolicy #PublicSafetyMatters #ChurchStreetDecline
Support Us for as Little as $5 – Get In The Fight!!
Make a Big Impact with $25/month—Become a Premium Supporter!
Join the Top Tier of Supporters with $50/month—Become a SUPER Supporter!
Leave a Reply