MACON, Ga. — Macon-Bibb county filed a suit in Superior Court on Thursday against M&M Grocery in Macon to have it closed permanently for being a public nuisance.
The M&M Grocery is located at 2760 Montpelier Avenue. On Wednesday, a 33-year-old man was shot at the store just before 9 p.m. It was also the site of a 2021 homicide when 28-year-old Nadia Andrews was shot and killed in her car.
"We know from crime data there is typically a spike on weekends, especially at night, and we did not want another weekend to pass before acting. It was obvious from the data that immediate action was needed here since the level and number of incidents was so great," said Mayor Lester Miller. "We are continuing our effort to investigate areas where criminal activity is concentrated and finding ways to break it apart."
The release said the decision was made on Tuesday before the most recent shooting at the store. The suit was filed quickly to close the business before the weekend. Since 2016 there have been nearly 900 emergency calls to the location. 75 cases are going back to 2019 specifically cited in the suit, including homicides, shootings, stabbings and more.
"This list of cases we submitted is not a complete list of the incidents our deputies have responded to; they merely represent the most egregious of them from the past three years," says Mayor Miller. "This neighborhood is plagued by what's happening here, and we must do what we can within our power to protect people from such a high concentration of dangerous activity."
Macon-Bibb County is asking the court to shut down the store immediately and set a hearing to permanently close it because it has been a public nuisance.
This continues a trend of county leaders taking action against locations where crimes occur. Sheriff David Davis stripped the alcohol license at the Rodeo Bar and Grill following a homicide over the weekend. Earlier this year, Lester Miller shut down the Friends Food Mart for similar reasons following a string of homicides.
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