“Facing Problems With Crime”: Even Baltimore City’s Hipster-Owned Businesses Are Losing Patience

Baltimore City’s image remains deeply shaped by HBO’s hit crime drama, the 2015 riots, an ongoing public safety crisis, decades of deindustrialization, population collapse, and the opioid and drug crisis. Together, those mounting problems have severely weakened the city’s appeal to visitors, residents, and businesses.

Democrats have held Baltimore’s mayor’s office continuously since 1967, placing nearly a six-decade reign under what can only be described as one-party rule by extreme left-wing Democratic queens and kings. This epic trail of destruction and chaos reflects a progressive experiment that has horribly gone wrong and the resulting crime and economic despair.

A population collapse to a 100-year low, absurdly high taxes, and crime have made it nearly impossible for mom-and-pop businesses to operate, even in the nicest parts of town.

Take Federal Hill, a historic neighborhood just south of Baltimore’s failed Inner Harbor. Once a popular spot for bars, restaurants, and college graduates, it has quickly descended into crime.

Local outlet The Baltimore Banner reports that yet another local restaurant is leaving the area.

Blue Moon Too will close its Federal Hill location in spring 2027 after its landlord declined to renew its lease.

Owner Sarah Simington also warned: “The neighborhood has been facing problems with crime.” 

Instead of moving her local brunch spot into the county, a much safer area, as many other restaurants in the city have done since the 2015 riots, Simington will relocate hers to Hampden, a somewhat safer part of the metro area.

Another popular spot in the harbor area that has been transformed into chaos is Fells Point, a popular bar district.

Fox Baltimore reported in June on youth mobs and gunfire that plagued the once-happening bar district, and the footage from the summertime is shocking:

In a video that has been making the rounds on social media, footage shows people running after reportedly hearing gunfire in Fells Point early Saturday morning. : @lorjuu on Instagram https://t.co/n1sxFiS3SV

— The Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) June 17, 2026

More from Fells Point: Imagine wanting to go out for dinner and a few drinks on a Saturday and this is what you walk into Completely unacceptable https://t.co/cP8lRyezM5

— QE Infinity (@StealthQE4) June 17, 2026

The misery doesn’t stop at Fells Point. In the downtown area known as the Inner Harbor, it’s a ghost town as commercial real estate buildings implode in value. Even Under Armour’s city-within-a-city project saw Goldman pull out of the multibillion-dollar development.

This summer, Moody’s Ratings downgraded the city because of its rapidly deteriorating financial situation, as left-wing Mayor Brandon Scott’s ability to govern properly comes into question.

Moody’s recently said the downgrade “reflects the trend of declining fund balance and cash levels across all government operations, largely concentrated in the utility and internal service funds.”

To Brandon’s credit, murders are significantly down, but that comes after a decade-long violent crime wave. We must add that the damage is already done because Baltimore has seen a massive exodus of residents, losing more than 70,000 people, or about 11% of its population, over the past two decades.

The slow death of Baltimore City has happened under more than a half-century of one-party Democratic rule, and its leaders’ progressive experiment has all but failed.