You don’t need to walk more than a block to see downtown Houston businesses are hurting.

KHOU - TV

It is a stark contrast to the way things used to be.

Just ask Roger Aghai.

He has owned his Main Street building for more than two decades. “Businesses they made a lot of money and rented, people they came here, they invest and after that just gradually is going down going down.”

Many people believe crime and the sirens that follow are keeping the crowds away.

Take this past weekend for example.

A young man was shot and killed inside the nightclub “Next.”

It is located on the eastern edge of downtown.

Business owners tell 11 News they are feeling it in their pocketbooks.

Lately, one bar and restaurant after another has been closing its doors.

The latest victim is St. Pete’s Dancing Marlin.

“St. Pete’s was the probably the toughest one of the bunch, the most determined to stay but almost everything is closed now,” said Bill Sadler who used to own the restaurant Solero’s. Sadler says he has watched downtown go downhill.  “It started out the A-list was going Downtown and construction just drove them out and in their absence a lesser element moved in. You got kind of a gangster crowd.”

Sadler still owns a restaurant, but now it’s in Uptown Park.

For him downtown is history. “It has become so much less than it was,  it’s kind of a heartbreak for me to go down there.”

So much so, he stays uptown and doesn’t go downtown.