As Los Angeles business owners continue to grapple with the homelessness issue, many businesses have been known to play loud music, typically classical, outside their stores to deter people from setting up camp.
One building owner in downtown LA has decided to do the same thing. But instead of classical Beethoven or Mozart, they’re playing Pinkfong’s “Baby Shark” on repeat.
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WATCH HERE“They played 'Baby Shark' all night long,” said Tracy, who lives in the encampment next door to the building at the corner of West 11th and Main streets. “They’re doing everything they can to make us move or drive us crazy. But it's doing the latter. It's driving people crazy.”
For as popular as “Baby Shark” has become with children in recent years, it’s despised by many adults for its ability to easily find its way stuck in your head.
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SIGN UP The building began playing the song through a loudspeaker pointed directly at the encampment.
Tracy said it kept her and others up all night.
“If we could, we would take that speaker apart,” she said. “We all went through four packs of cigarettes. Lord knows how many soups we ate last night.”
Around the corner, Shalom Styles owns the barbershop Styles Barber Lounge. It’s one of the only businesses in the building and in the area, which is full of empty store fronts and “For Lease” signs.
“Everything's going out of business,” he explained, “We're going to try to handle the homeless if the city can't handle it. So this is the best way that we could do with being nice.”
As homelessness continues to rise in Southern California, many businesses have deployed similar tactics to varying levels of success.
A couple years ago, Metro tested out a similar strategy by playing classical music at at least one subway stop, with Metro officials claiming they saw a decrease in crime as a result.
But contrary to what Styles said, the people living feet away would say the practice is not nice.
Styles said they’re not trying to be mean; they simply don’t feel heard by the city.
“It's not always about being kind because when people are taking away from business, and all the stores are going out of business,” he said, “We’re still here surviving, trying to put up for our family.”
Meanwhile, Tracy said it feels like they’re being kicked when they’re already down.
“This is ridiculous. We can't get any sleep. We can't get housing. We can't eat,” she said. “And now they're trying to drive us crazy with children’s music.”
