By Doug Miller
The businesses that signed the petition occupy the commercial stretch of property on East Park between Riverside and Long Beach boulevards and range from professionals such as Dr. Leo Beloyianis and Dr. Leland Barry, to restaurants like Steven's Pasta and Himawari Sushi, to national franchises such as Chase Bank and Edward Jones investing.
According to the petition, addressed to City Manager Charles Theofan with a copy sent to the Herald, "Indigent people are now camping out and sleeping in our doorways, urinating and defecating, drinking beer and littering our sidewalks. People sit all day on the rail ties surrounding the trees and beg. Tenants have requested the police to move these people along and they have done so. We do not believe we should have to call the police over and over."
Barbara Mosca, a former Democratic Long Beach City Council member, is a principal at Edward Jones and one of the signers. "In the business section on Park Avenue, people should be able to come and go and do their business without having to deal with people begging, loitering, drinking beer and hanging out all day," she said. "It's not a good image for the city of Long Beach."
According to Police Commissioner Thomas Sofield, his officers are limited in what they can do. "If they're violating city ordinances or doing something criminal, we can do something about it," he said. "If they're blocking the sidewalk, we can do something about it." But Sofield explained that sleeping under a tree on a public sidewalk probably doesn't meet that standard.
Many of the other grievances mentioned in the petition do violate ordinances, such as open containers of alcohol and public urination, but violators have to be caught. "The question is, what do we do with these people?" Sofield said. Long Beach does not have a homeless shelter, and while his officers can call in Nassau County Social Services for assistance, a person is not required to submit to help unless he or she is demonstrably in physical or mental distress.
Theofan said he was working with Sofield's department on an amicable solution. But he added that he is a Manhattanite who remembers New York City before Mayor Rudolph Giuliani began cracking down on quality-of-life crimes in the early 1990s. "The very first thing I'd deal with in the morning was being accosted and asked for money, and it was the very last thing that would happen as I came home," Theofan recalled. "And it cheapens your whole existence. ... It's dangerous to society. Low-level crimes, like the panhandlers and the squeegie men, encourage high-level crimes, and it leads to a general disrespect for the law."
Louis Corcione is the owner of Fresco's, the crepe bistro at 150 E. Park Ave., and also the manager of Steven's Pasta on the same block. He conceded that the police can't arrest people who aren't committing crimes, but suggested that they can keep them from congregating. "Keep them moving, instead of hanging out in one place," he said. "I'd like to see more police walking on the sidewalks. They certainly have a handle on the parking situation - we've all gotten tickets. If they use those same people on foot rather than in cars, they could provide a better presence."
Corcione said he couldn't quantify whether the situation was hurting business, but said he has heard a few comments and fielded a few questions from customers. "We get a lot of transient customers - people right off the beach or from the movie theater - who ask if it's like this on the boardwalk, [or] if it's always like this. They don't know how to react to it, and it's certainly gotten worse over the years."
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