Buffalo Republican mayoral candidate James Gardner is ramping up his calls to improve public safety in the city, in light of several break-ins at a popular downtown restaurant.
Gardner appeared at Casa Di Pizza, which was recently broken into for the third time this year.
Gardner called for starting a burglary task force and, in his words, “unshackling” police to let them operate more effectively. He dismissed recent local crime data as inaccurate but said he needed the statistics in front of him to cite specifics.
“There are any number of statistics that any number of politicians can point to with respect to crime," he said. "The truth is, if you talk to voters, you talk to business owners who are living and working in the city of Buffalo, not one of them believes that the city of Buffalo is safer today than it was four years ago or eight years ago.”
According to city data, there is a 30.4% decrease in Part 1 crimes between 2021 and 2025. Part 1 crimes include homicide, rape, aggravated assault and robberies, as well as larceny-theft, burglary and vehicle theft.
Another concern for Gardner is the lack of ability for local law enforcement to assist with ICE activities.
"The issue that I'm primarily concerned with is making sure that members of law enforcement, local members of law enforcement, can freely and openly talk to and work with all levels of law enforcement," he said. "It's a fundamental plank of what I define as a sanctuary city, where you're preventing that free exchange of information."
Currently, a warrant is needed for local law enforcement to assist ICE agents, but that's a state requirement rather than a city decision.
City officials have never formally declared Buffalo a "sanctuary city," and there is no formal definition.
The term generally applies to "a policy that limits or defines the extent to which a local/state government will share information with federal immigration law officers," according to Global Refuge, a nonprofit organization for immigration and refugee assistance.
