City of Olympia: Business owner in violation after building wall to keep out homeless

OLYMPIA, Wash. – One business owner in downtown Olympia said she is fed up with vagrants sleeping, doing drugs or going to the bathroom in the alcove in front of her shop’s door.

Anne Buck built a wall to keep homeless people from camping out in front of her 5th Avenue store -- but city officials now have warned her it has to go.

“I feel sorry for these people but I also have to run a business and I’m going to run a business. We have needles and we have clothing, pee and poop,” she said. “I have to call the ambassadors.”

Part of The Olympia Downtown Ambassadors’ job is to clean up after reports of human waste.

Buck said she has called them in the past but thinks her wall will take care of her problem and allow cleanup crews to work in other areas.



The city of Olympia believes that Buck’s wall is illegal because she did not get a permit or use proper materials. Plus, the 93-year-old building is located in a national historic district and the wall didn’t go through a design review.

City officials released a statement to Q13 News:

"The City of Olympia completely understand Ms. Buck’s frustration about the negative activity happening in her business alcove. We share her concerns and understand why she took action to make it stop. However, the City has three concerns specifically with Ms. Buck’s structure:




        "So the issue is not that Ms. Buck took action to stop the negative activity happening in her alcove. The bottom line for the City is that unpermitted, uninspected, unreviewed construction happened on a historic downtown building that raises historic preservation and life-safety concerns for us.