The Kinzie Industrial Corridor has been plagued with crime for years, and though some say the problems have improved in 2007, this fall has seen an increase in thefts and vandalism.

The numbers of crimes reported this fall in the Industrial Corridor, which lies in the 13th Police District, are similar to those recorded in 2006, but the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago has seen a spike in complaints from its business members.

"The industrial corridor hasn't ever been without those problems, but this fall it's been particularly bad," said Steve DeBretto, director of Outreach and Member Services for the Industrial Council.

The Fulton-Carroll Center, where the Industrial Council's offices are located at 2010 W. Fulton, had three incidents of theft and attempted break-ins on two consecutive weekends in October.

Lori Crowder, property manager of the Fulton-Carroll Center, said the thefts were "crimes of opportunity," meaning that the thieves only took small items that are easy to grab, like hand tools they can sell for $10-20.

In addition to the break-ins, Crowder said the center and the businesses it represents have seen an increase in metal theft.

Many of the calls DeBretto has received over the last few months from other businesses about crime have been about theft of scrap metal, especially copper. DeBretto attributed this to the rising cost of copper. He said in most of the incidents, the thieves are stealing condenser tubes from air conditioning units and stripping out the copper wiring, which can cause about $10,000 of damage to the unit.

Even with a new City Council ordinance in place that requires scrap metal dealers to get identification or photos of the people they are buying from when accepting certain metals, DeBretto and Crowder said scrap metal theft is still a serious problem.

"Some of the scrap yards really need to look at what they are accepting," she said. "If stock yards continue to take things that they recognize is stolen property, then people will keep stealing it."

Sergeant Juan Clas of the 13th District said doing routine spot checks and checking up on the scrap dealers is a way to enforce the ordinance, but it is still challenging to determine if an item was in fact stolen unless the piece has an identifying number. Clas said this makes it difficult to connect the metal to the original owner.

"The thing is to keep contacting [the scrap dealers] and making them more aware that they should follow the municipal code," Clas said.

David Lebovitz, the owner of Albany Steel and Brass Corp., which is one of the oldest businesses in the Industrial Corridor located at 1900 W. Grand, said his business has had thefts in the past, but has a constant graffiti problem. He said it has been getting worse over the past year and even more so in the past two months.

"The outside of our buildings look so bad from the removal now, because it's been done so many times," said Lebovitz, adding that they have spent thousands of dollars on the removal.

While the 13th Police District has an undercover team patrolling the Industrial Corridor five nights a week from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., Lebovitz said he would like to see more patrols in the area and a surveillance camera installed.

Overall, Clas said the 13th District has not received a higher volume of calls this fall than usual and when they do receive reports of crime they put their resources to use.

Crowder said business owners should take it upon themselves to become more vigilant in making sure all doors are closed and locked, since it takes thieves only a few seconds to run in and grab something.

"Of course, we'd always like to see increased police presence, but police can't be everywhere all the time," Crowder said.