Business Owners Call for Better Policing of Central Park

A district 6 meeting got contentious Wednesday night (Feb. 15) after residents and business owners claimed police were doing nothing to stop drug dealing, prostitution and fighting in Central Park, across from the Del Mar Gold Line Station and blocks away from Union Station homeless shelter. Police Chief Phillip Sanchez denied all allegations.
Sanchez interrupted two owners of La Grande Orange Café as they made claims of rampant drug use and fist fighting in the park and the Del Mar Gold Line Station, derailing the conversation he was having about homelessness in Pasadena.
“Statistically speaking your assertion does not pan out, the reality is that the park is not generating the perception that you might have,” Sanchez said making the comment about halfway through the public discussion.”
After the meeting Police Commander Chris Russ said there were 384 police responses to the park over the last year, of which, he said 299 were officer initiated.
“That’s when they go out to check the park, get out of the car,” Russ said although did not know the breakdown on types of calls, such as violent robberies or assault.
“We break it down by self initiated vs. a call or request for services in the park,” he said.
Russ told residents that last month the area was swept by two undercover drug teems. He also said although the response numbers were high, actual arrests were low.
“Officers will go out there and ask them to move on, the problem is, it’s a public park,” he said. “Nobody has the right to ask you to move on, just because they are laying there in the park, you can’t ask them to more on.”
Russ said they can ask question such as, are they on active parole? “We can’t violate their constitutional rights.”
Co-owners, Adam Strecker and Bob Lynn of LGO Hospitality which operates the La Grande Orange Café said things had gotten so bad they were considering closing the restaurant and leaving Pasadena altogether. Strecker said they were not worried about homelessness they cared about crime.
“The last one we had was a knife fight that actually occurred in the building,” Strecker said. “It started across in the park, spilled over inside the building.”
He went on , “The guy grabbed a knife off the table, swung it at one of the managers, they [police] detained the guy, one of the police officers comes back in and says that we are going two let these two guys go. I said myself, you need to arrest them he swung a knife at one of our managers.”
Strecker claimed no arrest was made and no police report was filed. He also said in another instance Lynn saw an officer sit in her police car watching a fight in the park doing nothing about it.
Sanchez tried to stop the two restaurant owners from continuing asking that they have the conversation after the meeting.
“I’m hearing we’re concerned about homeless but we’re not concerned about homeless,” Sanchez said. “Maybe we can have a separate dialog after…”
Lynn said he was not interested in a one on one “sidebar” meeting, “I think there are a lot of other people in the room, with all do respect, that care about this issue.”
Sanchez said there are a number of reasons reports are not written, “I’m not suggesting for a moment that that’s 100 percent a true capture for the dynamic that’s occurring there.”
He said in the last year 20 times a report was generated, “because someone wanted one.”
Teddy Bedjakian, owner of the Equator restaurant off Colorado Blvd said he no longer calls the police saying when one drug dealer is gone another moves in, he said he now takes care of the situation himself something officers advised against.
“Last week I caught a gentleman smoking meth in my stairwell,” Bedjakian said. “I broke the pipe, I kicked him out.” He said the man called police accusing him of assault, “There is nothing I can do, my hands are tied.”
Bedjakian said calling the police has also affected his liquor license.
“I have probably the worst conditions of any business owner,” he said. “I have 28 conditions; I have to have a security guard, at a restaurant.”
Other residents also claimed the park was overrun by drugs and homeless, at one point circulating pictures of people sleeping in the children’s play area, “Would you want to have your kid play there,” one of them said. They also accused police of doing nothing about Church of the Nazarene of Pasadena feeding hundreds of homeless Sunday mornings, “This is like they are opening up the Apple store with a new product, with the line, waiting to be fed.”
Sanchez said, earlier, that nightly there are between 950 to 1,100 homeless in shelters, temporary housing and on the street. He also said estimates suggest that four out of every six returning Iraqi war veterans, and others that served in the Middle East, will end up on the street.
He said, “The good news in that area is, we have over 1,200 nonprofits in Pasadena, in one form or another, who are capable of helping individuals.”
Strecker and Lynn suggested numerous times during the meeting they were also willing to help clean up the park, with possible activities.