Commentary–

Looking For Reasonable Limits

On Loitering By Kids

By Dominick Salvatore, Jr

As I read the article about the youth concerns at the center’s businesses in The Bee (12/1/06), I realized I had some strong opinions on this subject. I now live in Florida, but I was a longtime resident of Newtown as well as a Newtown police officer. When I lived in Newtown and patrolled the streets I couldn’t comment publicly on issues such as this without going through the proper channels, but now the time is right.

The problem of teenagers loitering in the center and other locations around town is nothing new. In 1981, I started as an Auxiliary Police Officer with the NPD, and this was a problem then and continues to be a bigger problem today because of the rapid growth in Newtown. I have to agree that our youth does need a designated place to get together to socialize and grow into responsible adults, but the local businesses and their parking lots should not be this place. As a resident and a police officer, I’ve been approached by many adults that say they will not go into Dunkin Donuts when the youths are there because of their inappropriate behavior such as language, loud voices, and the lack of free passage into the business. The NPD was hired by business owners to patrol the parking lots on the weekends to watch the youths, but it’s more like a $40+ an hour babysitting service.

The source of this problem is with the parents. Although we pay thousands of dollars in taxes for public transportation every year, they insist on bringing their children to school and then allow them to walk to the center of town to hang out when school ends. Unfortunately in today’s world, both parents do have to work but because they know their children are in the center, or at least think they are, doesn’t mean they’re safe and staying out of trouble. Some parents will bring their children to Edmond Town Hall to watch a movie, but in reality a lot of these kids never see the movie. They’ll get picked up by friends and go driving off for a couple of hours or walk to the center to hang out.

I worked the midnight shift for many years and found 12- to 15-year-old kids walking on Church Hill Road at 3 am. Usually I’d call their parents who never knew their child was out or thought they were staying at a friend’s house. These parents would come to pick up their child with a scolding and would thank the police and go home. But there were too many times when parents would get angry that we called them and let their children continue to stay out. This type of behavior from parents does not teach the child to respect any type of authority and therefore a business owner.

It would be nice to think that the article in The Bee sparked parents interest to sit their children down, have them read the article and discuss why hanging out in the center is not a good thing and come up with a better solution. Okay, so if it’s not a problem with the parents why not do this: have your children and their friends choose between them whose house they will go to on that Friday afternoon? Then they can all go hang out at that house because they’re just hanging out and not doing anything wrong, right? Oh, that’s right, they can’t do that! What about insurance? If someone gets hurt, they can sue. Not to mention all the calls to the police now, right? The parents aren’t going to tolerate the damage done to their property, the garbage left behind and the items missing and broken. So why do the business owners and their customers have to?

There isn’t an easy solution for this problem because we cannot and do not want to make laws saying kids can’t get a doughnut and talk to their friends in a parking lot. But we can do what’s reasonable to at least limit the problem. Parents have to step in and realize that this is a problem and try to find other ways for their children and friends to get together and also teach them how to be respectful and responsible while still having fun.

Just remember the Town of Newtown is a safe and great place to raise your children, and it has one of the best groups of police patrolman and patrol supervisors you can ask for.

(Dominick Salvatore, Jr, is a retired police officer for the Town of Newtown now living in Palm Coast, Florida.)