It's one of the most common complaints Common Councilman David Rivera hears about from block clubs and businesses: prostitution.

"You can see it during different times of the morning," Rivera said. "They're going up and down the street. I see it myself."

Sex workers, drug dealers and their customers – as well as all the loitering on street corners and bus stops that goes along with such activities – are a perpetual problem on and around Grant Street, Rivera said.

It has prompted Buffalo Police Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood and Mayor Byron W. Brown to temporarily move their offices to the corner of West Delavan Avenue and Congress Street all day Thursday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

"I want to go into that area and bring my command staff with me and whatever resources to help combat crimes that's happening here," Lockwood said.

He will hold his weekly chiefs meeting at a mobile command center set up on the block, as well as his executive staff meeting and his monthly get-together with the Buffalo Peacemakers.

The public is invited to stop by and voice their concerns.

There's no doubt they will.

In July, following a spate of shootings, Lockwood and Brown held a similar "taking it to the streets" event at a vacant lot on the corner of Theodore and Block streets on the city's East Side. Residents complained about everything from gun violence to giant potholes they wanted fixed .

"You get an earful," Lockwood said. "They don't hold nothing back. They let you know exactly what's going on, and that's what I expect. Don't hold nothing back. Give it to me."

Police Commissioner Byron Lockwood and Mayor Byron Brown spent the day at Theodore and Block streets after reports of violence there. (John Hickey/News file photo)

He will surely hear a lot of neighborhood complaints about prostitution.

"They go up and down Grant Street all day long," said Debbie Lombardo, a community outreach coordinator with West Side Neighborhood Housing Services and member of the Bird-Herkimer Block Club. "They just walk up and down the entire strip. I've out come out in the morning at 7:15 a.m. and there's a couple of them standing there already."

Then there are the men looking to meet the women. They drive by, then circle back. The sex worker walks over and they drive to a side street.

Rivera and Lombardo both agreed mass arrests aren't the answer.

"I can't oversimplify it and say: 'Lock 'em up,' " Rivera said. "There's obviously something else that we have to deal with in a more comprehensive way – getting them the help they need, getting them off the streets as well and making sure they can turn their lives around."

Neighbors have also complained about aggressive panhandling in the area, and there have also been several shootings believed to be related to gangs in the area, said Chief Anthony J. Barba, who is in charge of the Northwest District (D District).

"We've had a few shootings around the area the last month," Barba said. "We've always had reports of prostitution. ... I wouldn't say it's any worse than it has been in the past."

In response, he has stepped up patrols in the area and the district's community police officers have been working with block clubs on strategies to deal with such crimes.

Barba sees Thursday's event as another way to let the community know the police are there to listen. "It opens dialogue," he said. "It lets them know we're there for them."

That's been Lockwood's goal – to build a better relationship between the community and the police.

Since being named to office in March 2018, he disbanded the Strike Force unit, which was criticized as being overly aggressive in Buffalo's poor communities of color, and started the Neighborhood Engagement Team, whose members plan activities with children and respond to community-based complaints. On Wednesday, the police opened its latest substation at the Broadway Market, where the NET team and community officers from Ferry-Fillmore District (C District) will be based.

"It's going to be a stronger police presence in the Broadway Market and for the surrounding neighborhoods," Lockwood said.