Video: Sarasota considers piping in opera to chase away the homeless

A Sarasota, Florida city commissioner wants to try a musical approach to solve a common city problem.

Commissioner Kelly Kirschner has proposed using opera to drive the homeless out of Five Points Park in downtown Sarasota.

The park is a place where homeless people usually frequent.

They’re a sore subject for some surrounding merchants who say it hurts their business.

Kirschner says he favors a musical solution over cracking down on the homeless with law enforcement.

“It’s but one perhaps very cost effective tool that communities in Europe and Canada and some communities in the U.S. are using,“ he says.

So the fat lady may be soon singing downtown.

Kirshner says he passed along a newspaper article about opera music and the homeless to the Sarasota Police Department for them to study the issue.