Loitering

Conshohocken Borough Council President John Boccella said last week that he would meet with borough Police Chief Adam Pagliaro to plan a response to residents' complaints about loitering, vandalism and drug activity at Poplar and Elm Streets. An Elm Street homeowner told the council Wednesday night that her property had been vandalized repeatedly by youths who loitered near the intersection. "They've broken a storm door, they loiter at night and there are dark dealings going on there," said the property owner, who asked not to be identified because she feared retaliation from neighborhood youths.

The area surrounding Linden Lake - known to Lindenwold residents as Terrace Lake - has been a popular hangout for several generations of teenagers. "I could recall being down there when I was a kid 40 years ago," Mayor Joseph C. Strippoli said. But in recent months, the escapades of teens and young adults at the lake have turned so ugly that borough residents expressed concern at a council meeting last Wednesday. Jeanie Cavanaugh, a resident of Norcross Road, told the council that on July 30, between 25 and 30 individuals, some armed with baseball bats, were involved in a gang fight.

Plans by East Goshen Township officials to deal with vandalism problems by passing an ordinance that would make loitering or prowling at night a summary offense have been stymied. When vandalism became a concern in late September, township supervisors first considered enacting a curfew. But at the suggestion of Police Chief Charles W. MacIntyre, the supervisors agreed to consider, instead, establishing an ordinance that would change loitering from a third-degree misdemeanor to a summary offense.

First, City Council wanted to study the idea of giving free drugs to addicts as part of a treatment program. That proposal prompted a public outcry and Council backed off. Yesterday, Council shifted to Plan B and authorized a new study of an idea that it believes might aid in the war on drugs. Members yesterday voted to study the idea of using the city's loitering laws to harass drug dealers and get them off street corners, if only for a few hours. The resolution, sponsored by Republican Councilman Jack Kelly, was approved unanimously by Council members.

A discussion of possible uses of community-development block-grant funds in Coatesville prompted almost a dozen local business owners to decry the city's toleration of loitering in the vicinity of Seventh Avenue and East Lincoln Highway. Owners of businesses on or near the 700 block of East Lincoln Highway told the Coatesville City Council during its meeting Monday that loitering, public drinking and drug sales happened regularly in front of and near the Crystal Cafe, 701 E. Lincoln Highway.

It won't balance the budget or stem violent crime, but ending loitering on downtown benches and cracking down on loud car stereos is a goal of the Borough Council. During Wednesday's meeting of the public works committee, council members tried to figure out whether they could give business owners the right to have benches in front of their shops or restaurants removed if the merchants can document through police complaints that the benches hurt trade. In the past year, some business owners have complained repeatedly that homeless people or drunks fall asleep on benches and litter around them, deterring business.

There are few people who want to see drug dealers plying their trade on this old town's street corners, but a police campaign to cut down on the practice has left the community deeply divided. The Police Department's strategy has been to crack down on loitering, especially in areas that Police Chief John Kalavik said have been identified as prime areas for drug dealers. Last year, police issued 51 citations for loitering, more than seven times the number they handed out in 2000.

Phyllis Glover is worried that summer vacation has become synonymous with youths hanging on street corners and porch steps instead of reading for fun in the library or swimming. If she had it her way, Glover said, children would have the option of sitting in front of computers, preparing for careers and skating at a park afterward. "If they have time to loiter, they have time to learn," Glover said. "I would just redirect their activities and groom them to be future leaders of the borough.

Everything business people and police could contrive to make South Street safe and secure was in place last weekend. A cop on every block, a 24-hour police mini-station, police bike patrols and weekend night court to deal swiftly with curfew violators, public drinking and other "quality of life" issues. Yet with all the precautions and get-tough measures, one man was shot and killed following an abortive stick-up and another seriously wounded in a dispute over a parking space.

In the last two years, whenever Donna M. Mulholland would look around her Mayfair neighborhood, she didn't like what she saw: drug dealers, teenagers hanging out on street corners, unkempt houses, and lingering trash. Mulholland, 41, didn't think that was good enough for her section of Northeast Philadelphia. A few weeks ago, she got busy. Last night, more than 300 people turned out for the first meeting sponsored by Mulholland's new organization, Concerned Citizens of Mayfair.

Keith Briscoe started his days with a Newport and a Pepsi. Three days a week, his mother gave him a pack and some cash, and Briscoe, who had schizophrenia, trudged to a Wawa store on Cross Keys Road in Berlin to buy a soda. Then, Briscoe, 36, would walk back to nearby Steininger Behavioral Care Services for treatment. It was his morning routine for the last three years. On Monday, Winslow Officer Sean Richards saw Briscoe loitering outside the Wawa before 8:30 a.m. and asked him to leave, but Briscoe refused, authorities said.

The fatal stabbing of a homeless woman in broad daylight in Center City's JFK Plaza on Tuesday raised the stakes exponentially in the city's efforts to wrest control of its prized downtown squares. In a setting nicknamed LOVE Park, the irony of a killing arising from a supposed lovers' quarrel made headlines that underscore the city's homeless problem. Before LOVE Park hit the news, the city got another black eye over homeless people in Rittenhouse Square - where they camped overnight, bathed in a fountain, and even engaged in park-bench sex. The Nutter administration's initial reaction to Rittenhouse activities was underwhelming, with police officials downplaying any crackdown.

Surveillance cameras should be placed at all major commercial arteries and police powers at city housing projects will be expanded, Camden City Council decided last night. Officials believe this will reduce crime in a city with a per-capita murder rate nearly twice that of Philadelphia's. But skeptics worry that the new police tools, both approved unanimously, could be abused. The first measure is a resolution supporting a $2.5 million program called Eyes in the Sky, which would put "highly visible" closed-circuit TV cameras along six major commercial corridors: Broadway, Mount Ephraim Avenue, Federal Street, Haddon Avenue, Westfield Avenue and Yorkship Square.

During a patrol last week in Olney, something about the two men on the sidewalk caught Officer Henry Schoch's eye as he drove down Godfrey Avenue. It was the hands. Always watch their hands. In an instant, Schoch swung a U-turn and cut off one of the men, who quickly pitched a small bag beneath a parked car. Then, while handcuffing him, the seven-year veteran radioed for backup to pursue the other man, who Schoch suspected had sold drugs. In the two minutes a second patrol car took to arrive, the suspected seller ducked around a corner and then reappeared, pleading innocence.

Police in the Philadelphia region have made hundreds of arrests under local loitering ordinances that experts say may be unconstitutional. Darby Township: "Loitering - remaining idle in one location; lingering; spending time idly; loafing or walking around aimlessly in one vicinity or neighbor-hood; or 'hanging around.' " Temple University Law School professor David Kairys: "It's the kind of statute that allows police to pick up just about anyone. Which people do you charge with hanging around?

With three out of four intended voters telling pollsters that crime is the issue driving Tuesday's mayoral primary election, no proposal has drawn more heat - from opposing candidates and people on the street - than Michael Nutter's support for the police tactic he calls "stop, question and frisk. " How does stop-and-frisk work? What is legally permissible? What is not? And why is it so controversial? One expert says such policies may well help get guns off the street - but carry a potential risk of civil-rights violations.

They're called "loafer rails," and those who try to park their fannies on the planters outside Hahnemann University Hospital will instantly get the point. The rails - jagged metal strips - were bolted to the tops of 10 stone planters last month when the hospital spruced up its main entrance on Broad Street near Vine, virtually ensuring that people wouldn't sit out front drinking, eating, smoking and littering. "We were hoping the rails would encourage patients and visitors to use the waiting rooms inside, and cut down on pedestrian congestion," said Coleen Cannon, a hospital spokeswoman.

Residents of Southwest Center City met the 17th Police District's new commander, Capt. Kevin J. Bethel, at a community meeting last night - and they gave him an earful. They asked about teens loitering on the street, children riding their bikes late at night, and fast-food takeouts open after the 11 p.m. curfew. "It's a nice neighborhood. It's a growing neighborhood. It's going to get better, but we have to deal with the crime," Eve Lewis, director of the meeting's sponsor, the Neighborhood Advisory Council for the South of South Neighborhood Association, said before the session.

Taken aback by a nationwide clamor over its proposed loitering ban, Souderton Borough Council voted to table the ordinance and review it further. Borough leaders expressed dismay yesterday that the proposed measure drew such strong opposition from outside the borough and said the media had misinterpreted the intent of the law. "The whole country is misunderstanding the problem," said Ned Leight, one of Souderton's nine council members. "We're not going to be locking up people and denying civil liberties.

A proposed loitering ban in Souderton is raising tempers from here to Texas. But local residents, business owners and police say it is the best way to curtail crowds of young people who have taken over the streets. Tonight, Souderton Borough Council will discuss an ordinance that would make it unlawful to gather in groups of two or more if it causes "discomfort or danger" to anyone else in the area. If police officers suspect a group might "create a breach of the peace," they could order the group to disperse.