Store deemed ‘dangerous’ spot in violence-torn Macon neighborhood faces forced shutdown
A corner store in a violence-plagued Macon neighborhood faces possible court-ordered closure after Bibb County officials this week filed suit citing the gas-and-food mart as “a well-known center of frequent serious criminal activity.”
M&M Grocery, which overlooks Montpelier Avenue between Poppy and Pansy avenues four blocks west of Pio Nono Avenue, has in recent decades been the site of fatal shootings and other crimes.
A most recent and perhaps most notable fatal shooting happened in the store’s parking lot in April 2017 when well-known Macon gang leader Andre “Gangster Dre” Taylor, 39, was shot in the head by a man who ambushed him from behind a trash bin.
A mural memorializing Taylor now overlooks the store’s parking lot along the Unionville community’s most-traveled thoroughfare.
The store sits amid a long-troubled stretch of Montpelier Avenue in an area that has been a modern-day epicenter of Macon’s violent crime.
Superior Court Judge Howard Z. Simms at midday on Friday issued an order temporarily closing the store and set an Oct. 10 hearing that could determine whether it will be permanently shuttered.
In a Thursday court filing, county officials seeking to have the store shuttered declared it a nuisance, a haven for violence and “drug activity.”
A public statement from the county regarding the filing cited nearly 900 emergency calls that have been made from the store since 2016.
“There are 75 cases going back to 2019 specifically cited in the suit,” the statement noted, “including homicides, car theft, stabbings, shootings, and the ongoing sale of drugs, including heroin, crack cocaine, ecstasy, Xanax, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2022 at 12:41 PM.