ASHEVILLE - Detectives are continuing to investigate what is believed to be arson at a longtime downtown Asheville business.
Former City Council Member Jan Davis, 75, has operated the business — Jan Davis Tire Store on Patton Avenue — for "going on 39 years," he told the Citizen Times.
He is among the ranks of those concerned by behavior from some living on Asheville's streets, and calling for change. Among other things, increased police presence, better pay and harsher accountability from magistrates would make a difference, Davis said.
"We are a tourist destination, and that's going to change if we don't do something," he said. "We're going to lose jobs and revenue if we don't make the streets safer."
He expects the arson to cost him $300,000 and several weeks out of commission.
No arrest had been made as of April 17, APD spokesperson Samantha Booth confirmed via email.
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"Detectives are continuingto investigate," she said.
"The Asheville Fire Department responded to an unoccupied business located near the 205 block of Patton Ave around 5:30 a.m. on April 7 for a report of a tire fire," Booth first wrote in an April 13 news release. "When crews arrived on the scene, they located a stack of tires against the building on fire with an extension into the building. There were no reports of injuries to civilians or first responders. Fire investigators have determined this fire was intentionally set."
Davis said that a neighboring business' security cameras caught two people setting fire with an accelerant to tires outside before it spread onto the building.
An AFD incident report, obtained by the Citizen Times with a public records request, offers little more information.
"The scene was documented with still photography, a matterport camera, and aerial photography," the report said. "The AFD investigation unit will continue to work in conjunction with APD to investigate this incident. The property owner was provided with both AFD and APD's incident numbers and advised to not touch any items until permitted by their insurance company."
Asheville police arrested Allen Lee Honeycutt, 42, earlier this month for an alleged separate arson incident at a business, according to a joint news release from APD and AFD. Police charged him with arson and felony breaking and entering. At press time he is in the county jail.
A larger conversation around homelessness, crime, substance abuse, tourism and the city's government took off earlier this year, fueled in part by downtown business owners and workers who say that Asheville's culture as a whole has changed for the worse. They have raised common complaints: harassment when walking back to their cars, defecation and urination in the streets and a general fear to be in Asheville — and downtown especially.
Police presence downtown has shrunk dramatically amid years of severe understaffing. In recent months, police officials have said the department is short of about 40% of its workforce.
“Right now, downtown, we have two officers and maybe two working extra,” APD Capt. Mike Lamb told a crowd at the Council of Independent Business Owners in March. “We used to have 12 officers, eight that were within our Charlie (downtown) District, and then two or three extra that would work in the evening. So, that’s how much lower our numbers are.”
The department was unable to provide conclusive data linking unhoused people to crime, Lamb said at the time. A homeless person could have a number of addresses listed on a warrant — a homeless shelter, the jail or their address before they became homeless, he noted.
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According to incident report data specific to downtown and provided by the department in a spreadsheet, there were 58 reports of violent incidents in 2022, a drop of 29% from the previous year. Property crime incidents were also down, with 336 reported in 2022 and 351 in 2021. Since 2013, there were four oyears that had more of those incidents reported than last year: 2013, 2018, 2019 and 2021.
But in a more recent, different dataset looking at Asheville as a whole rather than just downtown, property crime went down in 2022 while violent crime rose.
Violent crime trended at historically high levels both in the city and nationally in 2022, Police Chief David Zack said at a March Environment and Safety Committee meeting. There was a 17.4% increase from 2021 to 2022, according to his data. The number has steadily climbed, with some aberrations, since 2013.
The city and county have partnered in a new way, with Buncombe County deputies patrolling downtown amid understaffing, the Citizen Times reported on April 14.
"I'm very compassionate to homeless people," Davis told the Citizen Times. "Most people are on the street by circ*mstance or bad decisions. On the other hand, I certainly can't condone the criminal behavior that we have, without anything being done about it. It's constant."
Ryan Oehrli covers public safety, breaking news, courts and other beats for the Citizen Times. Comments? Questions? Tips? Send them to coehrli@citizentimes.com or 252-944-6816. Please support local, daily journalism with asubscriptionto the Citizen Times.
