UPDATE: Police have suspect for business vandalism downtown, in east Dayton

The buildings housing The Brightside music venue and Ping IT Services at Third and Keowee had one of their many large glass panels damaged and another one shattered. DK Effect Bar & Arcade, almost a half-mile east at the June Street intersection, remained open over the weekend, with a front window boarded over.

A building two doors east of DK Effect had three large front windows shattered, and the Second Shelf storefront, near Third and Bell, also had a window broken out.

David Kittredge, partner-owner of Tender Mercy bar and Sueno in the 600 block of East Third Street, said the incidents have been going on for at least a week. On June 3, Kittredge’s security cameras captured a man smashing a globe lamp near the entrance to Tender Mercy.

The man appears to be carrying a pole, and doesn’t stop walking as he slings the pole into the globe lamp, sending glass scattering across the sidewalk.

“This guy we’ve seen around a few times. He’s always aggressive like this,” Kittredge said. “And from what I understand, it’s happened several times in the past.”

DK Effect owner Tony Clark said that a man had thrown a keg through their window and smashed their outdoor ping pong table, which is made of plexiglass. However, no items on the inside were stolen or damaged.

A weekend Facebook post from DK Effect about their damage led to more than 100 comments, some from nearby residents and business owners listing nearly a dozen sites that have been damaged recently. They include a church, a gas station, laundromat, bars and restaurants, and more. Some commenters posted video from their cameras that resemble the man shown smashing the Tender Mercy lamp.

“We’ve been there for seven years, and we’ve had Gionino’s (Pizzeria) for five years, and we haven’t had a single problem like this since April of 2020,” Clark said. “So it was kind of a surprise that it’s this big of a deal all of a sudden.”

Both Kittredge and Clark’s business partner have spoken to police investigators, along with other business owners. It is unclear whether the man caught on video Monday at Tender Mercy is responsible for all of the damage to nearby businesses.

This isn’t the first time that Tender Mercy has been vandalized, said Kittredge, who described a similar incident a year ago where that exact same lamp was found smashed on the sidewalk.

“I couldn’t show it was him, but at the time that happened, that whole week, I’d seen him around, and he just gets in this mode where he gets really aggressive and you feel something’s about to go down,” he said.

The east side of downtown Dayton, including the Webster Station area, has seen significant growth in the past decade. Restaurants, bars and office businesses have sprung up, and new apartment developments have brought more people and a lively feel to the area.

Despite the “frustrating” situation, Clark said, DK Effect has experienced an outpouring of community support since the incident, adding that this Saturday at DK Effect was three times as busy as Saturday the previous week.

“All in all, this wasn’t financially a big deal,” he said. “We’ll get the glass and everything fixed. I made the post more in preparation if we had to be closed for a few hours to get things handled. But sort of the opposite happened, we have been overwhelmed with messages of support.”

Being downtown for the last six years, Kittredge said he has seen the area transform for good and for bad, citing problems on the other end such as fights on the RTA bus system and concerns with homelessness.

“Particularly in the last two years … for as much progress as we’ve made, we’ve gone backwards in other ways,” he said. “The outside perception of downtown is still very much a real thing, that it’s not changing for the better.”