Circus school at odds with city over safety in downtown core

The Windsor Circus School is calling on the city to do something to improve the safety of the alley behind their downtown building and give them access to parking.

The school is located onPelissierStreet, and the owners say clients have to walk their children through dimly lit alleys and down streets where they are accosted by panhandlers.

"The type of people I see in and around this building often leave me feeling worried. A little concerned for my daughter's safety," said Emily Crumb, the mother of a 12-year-old girl who attends the acrobatic classes taught at the school.

Co-owners Joe Jelasic and Tia Nicolettiwant improved lighting and pavement in the alley. They also want to be able to pay a monthly fee for about 30 spaces in thePelissierStreet parking garage, but weretold they can't.

They believe if the alley were cleaned up it would discourage the "vagrants" and if they could strike a good deal to rent space at the parking garage across the street,clients wouldn't have to walk through a gauntlet of panhandlers.

"The alleyways are not as clean as they could be. When they go down the road they're encountering potholes. They're encountering vagrants they walk through," said Jelasic.

"They put a lot of money into the $1-million, $2-million light show but they can't put $20,000 of lights in the back alleys," said Nicoletti.

Downtown BIA Chairman Larry Horwitz, who also owns the building the schoolrents space in, saidthe BIA is working on the lighting but can't understand why the city can't rent parking space to the school.

"Across the street, the parking garage is almost completely empty. There might be one or two cars there at the most on a daily basis," said Horwitz, pointing to the area the city just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars converting retail space to parking.

Nicoletti saidthey like the space they rent in the former YMCA building but they may have to move to Tecumseh if the situation doesn't improve.

She saidWard 3Councillor Rino Bortolin is aware of their concerns. CBCNews was unable to reach him for comment.