ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Businesses are banding together in a busy area known for attracting the homeless. They say they’re fed up with the crime problem that comes with it.

“We’ve had some vandalism done before which we’ve had to rectify,” said Ben Shaw.

Businesses along Menaul near University are no strangers to crime.

“The first time they took $80 and they did $8,000 worth of damages,” said Tyler Fabian.

Urban 360 Pizza says in the last three weeks, they’ve had two break-ins.

“We had no problems since we opened and now we’ve been seeing needles all over the place. In the mornings we do walkarounds and it just hasn’t gotten better,” said Fabian.

Tyler Fabian’s family owns Urban 360 on Menaul and says it’s been hard recouping since the break-ins.

“We want it to feel like a safe, welcoming environment for everybody,” he said.

Down the street at Archetype Tattoo, the owner says many of his neighbors have joined the midtown business coalition to meet once a month to discuss the issues.

“Try to come up with remedies for those problems, we do have some local APD officers that attend so that we can from the horse’s mouth so to speak tell them exactly what we’re dealing with,” said Shaw.

Tuesday morning they met about their most recent concern, the potential for the city’s new homeless shelter to go up at the Crowne Plaza.

“We do not have a problem with homeless, we want to see the homeless get the help they need, but obviously a news report about a potential homeless shelter being a stone’s throw away from our business… was bad for business,” Shaw said.

For Urban 360, they say if the shelter did go up, it would not be good for their business, on top of the issues they’re already facing.

“The fear for our business is we’d potentially have to sell, just because of the crime rates in the area,” Fabian said.

The businesses have even started a petition to try and get that shelter location nixed. They have also spoken with their city councilor regarding their concerns.

That hotel near the Big-I is not on the mayor’s list of locations for the homeless shelter. One of the mayor’s options if just a half-mile up university behind Carrie Tingley Hospital.