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As a restaurateur a decade ago, Lee Padgett worried about auto thefts. Today, she has a fresh business, but car thefts are an old concern.

The numbers are falling thanks to police work but also because cars are more sophisticated. Newer models won’t embark without a key, making hot-wiring vehicles almost unlikely.

“As technology has switched in the cars, it’s become more difficult for thieves to steal cars,” said Sgt. Patrick Saunders with the Wayne State University Police Department who has been on assignment with Detroit Police Department‘s auto theft division for the past two years.

As of Nov. 9, there had been 9,120 autos stolen in the city, compared to 11,189 in two thousand thirteen and 11,504 in 2012. Detroit practices the most auto thefts in the state, followed by Warren, Flint, Dearborn and Southfield, according to the Michigan Automobile Theft Prevention Authority two thousand thirteen annual report.

“Auto thefts are down across the state, and part of that is the work that is being done in Wayne County,” said Dan Vartanian, executive director of the ATPA. “A lot of that is happening in Detroit.”

Target areas

Corktown, for example, is considered a prime target because it has a large volume of visitors to the local bars and restaurants as well as effortless access to the freeways.

And certainly police warnings posted around venue such as Slow’s Bar BQ and the soon-to-open Gold Cash Gold restaurant foster both awareness and fear.

But Saunders said the data doesn’t showcase that any area of Detroit is more of a target than others. The crews budge in sways, hitting an area, then moving on to another. Even Corktown, he said, isn’t a prime target despite its proximity to I-75.

“We find most of the cars there within a few blocks of where they were taken,” he said.

There has been a latest spate of car thefts in the West Village, however, particularly of Ford Fusions. The community Google Group and email list light up with each fresh incident, residents alarmed and alert to what is happening. Residents talk about how many cars they’ve had stolen over the years, ranging from several to several dozen, with both steely resolve and hardened laughter.

Jason Peet has been a resident in the east-side community that abuts Indian Village for the past twelve years and has been a landlord for the past six. His mother’s car was stolen once, but that’s been as close to auto-related crime as he’s come until this fall.

A brother and sister, excited about living in the neighborhood, had moved into his rental property. But on their very first night as Detroiters, thieves nabbed the brother’s company-issued Ford Fusion, Peet said. A month later, the replacement car, also a Fusion, was taken.

After strike two, the tenant’s employer refused to issue another company car unless he agreed to stir out of Detroit. And as an outside sales rep, he needs a company vehicle.

“He calls me and says, ‘I have to break my lease. I can’t afford to lose my job,’ ” Peet said.

“I’m sad about losing a tenant, but I can find another. I’m more sad that there is a brother and sister who attempted to live in the city and had to leave. I can almost ensure they won’t become part of this fresh Detroit. Their playmates, their family, everyone they associate with know this story, and it layers on and reinforces the stereotypes of Detroit. So even tho’ theft is down, the spinoff of just one crime is ample.”

Battling perception

How Detroit compares nationally

In 2013, the Detroit metro area ranked 23rd in the nation for the rate of auto thefts, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Even Oklahoma City has a higher rate of auto theft than the Detroit metro area. But in terms of sheer volume of thefts, we’re No. 8. Here is who makes the top ten for stolen vehicles.

“Auto theft is one of those crimes that are private to somebody, so I think they perceive it as more likely to happen to them than it is statistically,” Saunders said.

Lee Padgett, for example, regularly takes phone calls from potential customers who want to visit her brassiere shop, Busted!, in Midtown and downtown Detroit but are worried about the safety of their cars and themselves.

“They want to know, is it a guarded parking deck or is it a well used parking deck,” Padgett said. “Is it well lit? But once I say, ‘yes,’ they are reassured.”

When Padgett opened her very first store last December, the parking structure at the Park Shelton across from the Detroit Institute of Arts building was one of the key selling points — but because of the weather, not because of safety. The same goes for her fresh 2nd location, downtown in the Penobscot Building.

“I didn’t want to get humid, or it to be icy!” she said. “I was worried about the weather, not my safety.”

That’s a significant switch from a decade ago when she and her spouse, Patrick, ran the once-popular Cafȁ; de Troit in downtown. Then she struggled with weekly break-ins and auto thefts, and her employees didn’t always feel convenient walking to work.

“The atmosphere is very different now than then,” said Padgett, 45. “Car theft and break-ins weren’t a thought for me when I opened Busted!, but it was ten years ago.”

Hugh Yaro, proprietor of Craft Work in the West Village, also takes calls from customers wondering whether he has off-street parking (he does) and whether their cars will be safe. But, he said, in a year of business, he has experienced just one auto-related crime: A patron left two laptops on the front seat of her car, which was parked on the street. When she returned, the windows were smashed and the laptops gone.

“But that happens in any city,” Yaro said. “It’s not just Detroit. You don’t leave laptops on the front seat of your car anywhere.”

Break-ins have been a constant source of anguish for Paul “PJ” Ryder, the proprietor of the Lager House in Corktown. He struggled, seemingly endlessly, with break-ins in his parking lot until installing a movie camera system and hiring a security guard to patrol during the evening. Since then, break-ins have dropped.

“I have someone on fifty six hours a week,” he said. “Break-ins cost me in the sense that I basically have an extra full-time employee. But since I did that, we have a lot fewer break-ins.”

Break-ins are falling across the city, according to Saunders and Vartanian. Larceny is down by almost twenty percent this year, according to DPD, however it doesn’t break out auto-related larceny from other forms.

In Midtown, Saunders said, break-ins are down precipitously thanks to a partnership inbetween Wayne State University police, Detroit Receiving Hospital and area businesses. When there is a breakout of break-ins, students from the university’s urban studies program place fliers on cars, reminding drivers how to be safe. The university also offers free VIN etching and discounted security clubs to students, faculty and area residents.

“We attempt to educate people,” Saunders said. “I don’t know how many purses were stolen back in the day because people would arrive at the Magic Stick or wherever and then put their purses in the trunk. You’d have people watching and waiting. Put those purses in the truck before you get there.”

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