Thursday night in Frankfurt opened up with a dramatic police presence....almost five-hundred police ended up in the section of town around the train-station....often referred to as the Bahnhof-Quarter (which includes the station, and the red-light district). Included in the action....food-inspectors and zoll-officers (tax men).
Number arrested or detained, or ticketed? Unknown. Nothing much came out of the HR public TV clip.
Anyone who lived or was stationed around Frankfurt in the 1970s or 1980s....would say that the district in question.....had a unique character and charm. It was a district with strip-bars, bratwurst stands, bordellos, and pubs. The drug situation? Barely noticeable in that period, but by the 1990s....most folks would argue that the district was creating a different atmosphere. If you had to use the train station....you got in....went direct to the ramp, boarded the train and left. You didn't go out front to view the 'mess'.
Today? If you walked around Taunus Strasse at 9 AM, you'd find at least fifty heroin-addicts laying on the street from their morning 'effort'. Spread around the district and nearby parks? Probably another five-hundred to a thousand individuals.
Most Germans who live around the district are fed up with the situation and it's routinely brought up via the city council and various city leaders. No one really wants to upset the balance here because if you got the dealers all upset, they'd move into another area of town and just make things worse.
Arresting the dealers? You'd just have new dealers within twenty-four hours brought in and dealing drugs.
Cops will say over the past couple of years, through their active program....they've cut down on pickpockets and minor theft by 40-odd percent.
Today going through the district in question? My advice is to actively walk through the district in the daylight hours....don't stop and gawk or admire the ten guys laying on the street from their heroin fix. Walking through at night? No....skip this area of town. Don't stay at the hotels within walking distance of the train station. If you use the station for travel purposes.....get in and move to the train in question. Don't loiter.
At some point, some law and order type landscape will arrive via local politics, and the city will put up some fenced area at the end of town and just dump the junkies and dealers there....refusing to allow them anywhere in the downtown area.
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