Jürgen Bruder, head of city marketing, met with the Arcadia Passage owner last week because some of the affected businesses are in the Passage. “We talked about the situation there and the escalation (of violence),” said Bruder and they wanted to work together to do something about it. On Friday, they will bring all business owners who rent at the Aracadia Passage together as well as other business people in the area. The goal is for them to meet each other, overcome fears together and work against formation of a parallel society.

“There is a potential for violence and provocation. One has to work against that,” explained Bruder. Further, “We want to help improve the situation and the mood.” Some first ideas have already been kicked around; perhaps a street festival or something similar around Aennchenplatz and Villichgasse. They planned to talk about the possibilities on Friday.

As previously reported, Police conducted a raid on the bar, supermarket and real estate offices last week in connection with violent confrontations there in mid-August. The involved business operators were declared unreliable in meeting commercial regulations and were prohibited from running any other businesses throughout Germany for one year. It was permitted to re-open the businesses, if other persons would be running them and that is now the case. (Orig. text: Ayla Jacob)