Pacific Beach business owners say homeless people are setting up camp on their rooftops and claim police aren’t doing enough to combat the problem.
Mark Marino, owner of Marino’s Italian Food restaurant off Garnet Avenue, says homeless target low buildings like his which are easy to climb up. He said a homeless couple has staked claim to his rooftop.
Marino says he’s kicked them off of his roof several times, but each time they return at night.
"It's just constant. Like I said, I know their names. ‘Alright, you guys get out of here,’ you know, that sort of thing,’ he said.
He said he reports the problem to police and officers have come and told the offenders to leave at least five times, but he says the roof dwellers are never cited or arrested because one thing or another he didn't have in place.
"Technically, if you don't have the trespassing signs, you don't have the letter of agency, then it's not trespassing,” he said. “Yet they're on the property.”
Business owners at a strip mall down the street from Marino’s restaurant say they've been dealing with the same thing. It’s not a surprise to Marino, who says it’s a growing trend in the neighborhood.
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"If you start looking at flat roofs, you might see clothes hanging out to dry, you'll see stuff, I see it all over P.B.,” he said.
He says cleaning up after the people who live on his roof has become a real chore.
NBC 7 reached out to the San Diego Police Department for information on Marino’s case and officers said Marino did have proper paperwork on file. However, when they returned to his business the couple had moved above a vacant nosiness next door which isn’t considered private property.
SDPD said it has been asking business owners to be vigilant, and to call them if they spot homeless encampments on rooftops.
