The owners of two Williston Park businesses say they have been repeatedly victimized in recent months by misbehaving local teenagers – a problem they linked to a loitering law recently enacted by the Village of East Williston.
Tal LaMountain, co-owner of Tal’s Auto Service at 41 Hillside Avenue, said two panes in the bay windows at his station were recently broken, and he has regularly discovered evidence of marijuana use and beer bottles in one corner in front of his property.
“It’s consistent. It’s endless,” LaMountain said.
LaMountain said that customers have told him they have observed teens “hanging out” around the darkened service station at night. He recently installed a 150-watt light in the front of the building, but he said that deterrent has had no apparent impact on discouraging the illicit activities.
Across the street at Weigand Bros. Funeral Home, teenagers have been congregating on the front lawn and riding skateboards, according to Chris Joyce, manager of the funeral home. He said garbage has been regularly strewn in the parking lot behind the facility at 49 Hillside Avenue.
“They were hanging around outside on the lawn. They were hanging around late at night wrestling, skateboarding,” Joyce said. “We spent a ton of money landscaping and they were all over the lawn. They were disrespecting the law.”
Both Joyce and LaMountain said the activity seemed to relate to the local law recently approved by the Village of East Williston, prohibiting people from loitering in the Long Island Rail Road train station plaza, the Village Green and Devlin Field after dusk. The LIRR train station in East Williston is on the border of Williston Park, just a few hundred yards from the two businesses.
“In 22 years, we never seemed to have this problem. I don’t know if it’s kids who got chased out of there and came over here. It certainly seems to be,” Joyce said.
LaMountain said problems with the teen have been recurring since July, when that local ordinance was passed.
“From what I’m hearing, it’s since they got kicked out of the park. The parents don’t see do give a you-know-what where they are,” LaMountain said.
LaMountain said that he had called the Nassau County Police Department 3rd Precinct when his auto service’s windows were broken a few weeks ago, but said the officer who surveyed the scene was unresponsive.
“Nothing I can do about it,” LaMountain said the officer told him.
He said the officer didn’t record any information about the incident.
Joyce said Wiegand Bros. had not reported any incidents to the Nassau County Police Department 3rd Precinct, but had discussed the situation with Village of Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar.
“We’re working with the police. There is some vandalism,” Ehrbar said.
Ehrbar said he couldn’t say whether the increased frequency of teen misbehavior during the summer was related to the new law in East Willliston or not.
“We haven’t had the same issue as East Williston. Both villages are trying to work on the issue,” Ehrbar said, noting that Williston Park’s auxiliary police officers have been actively working to discourage teens from loitering in locations along Hillside Avenue.
Village of East Williston Mayor David Tanner said he couldn’t say whether the implementation of the ban on loitering in East Williston was related to the recent teen activities in Williston Park.
As of mid-August, 50 summonses had been issued to people who have violated a recently enacted village law aimed at teenagers gatherings after dusk in the Long Island Railroad station plaza, on the Village Green and at Devlin Field, according to village officials. Summonses issued for trespassing violations have not yet been adjudicated, according to East Williston Village Clerk Susan Egan.
Tanner said he couldn’t say whether the local law was working as a deterrent, but noted fewer incidents of vandalism had occurred.
“There’s no empirical data. The acts of vandalism have decreased,” he said.
Former East Williston Mayor Nancy Zolezzi, who introduced the local law with former deputy mayor James Daw, Jr. before they both left office earlier this year, said she didn’t think it had anything to do with the recent occurrences of teen misbehavior.
“It has to do with kids who are disrespectful. It’s cyclical,” she said, noting that the locations the teens habituate change unpredictably.
With Ehrbar sitting nearby, Zolezzi raised the issue of the vandalism at last week’s meeting of Chamber of the Willistons. She said the teens had been harassing mourners entering Weigand Brothers and bottles of alcohol and substances believed to be drugs were found in the area surrounding the incidents.
Ehrbar responded at the chamber meeting by saying he would be “diplomatic” and state that he only wished that Zolezzi had come to the Village of Williston before presenting the problem to the chamber. He added that he would investigate the reports.
Sean McCarthy, deputy inspector of the 3rd Precinct cited “the general nuisance quality of life stuff of youths migrating from village to village” at last week’s Williston Park Neighborhood Watch meeting as an ongoing phenomenon.
After the meeting, he said he was unaware of any increase in teen misbehavior in Williston Park, and said he had no record of the incident at Tal’s Auto Service.
McCarthy acknowledged that the local East Williston ordinance has stirred controversy between local residents who support it and parents who feel their children have been harassed by the police. But he said there’s no solution that would satisfy everyone.
“If a place has a restrictions, we’re going to enforce those restrictions,” McCarthy said.
