Downtown Melbourne bar getting creative in effort to bring customers back after shooting

MELBOURNE, Fla. - A bar in downtown Melbourne says it's been losing business since three people were shot in the area in early May.

Its owner brought a creative solution to the city council to try to boost people's confidence that it is safe.

"As you can imagine, after any unfortunate event, everybody takes a little bit of a hiccup during that time, when people question an area," said Randy Bennett, the owner of the Hurricane Creek Saloon.

Bennett says he scans everyone's ID who comes in and can compare numbers week to week.

Bennett told the Melbourne City Council there were 500 fewer people the week after the shooting, about a $10,000 difference in revenue.

"You cannot basically hold 80 businesses, 30 restaurants, and a family fun environment hostage when a couple of weirdos come by and kind of ruin it for everybody for a moment in time," Bennett said.

After opening his water bill and seeing an advertisement for the local airport, he got the idea to team up with other businesses and create their own flyers.

He says they would promote downtown and assure people that it's safe.

"Downtown Melbourne is the same, fun family-friendly place that it’s always been," Bennett said.

"Everybody gets their water bill, and we have about 58,000 accounts," said Paul Alfrey, Melbourne's mayor. "It gets directly to the consumer and it kind of builds confidence in our downtown."

Alfrey says they already started having more police patrols, and security for the downtown parking garage and plan to bring in more lighting.

"Melbourne’s safe," Alfrey said. "We’re a law-and-order community. Unfortunately, things like that happen. We’ve beefed up patrols and have a lot of measures coming in."