Vagrants intimidate business owners
A business owner, who did not want his name published, said the vagrants are posing a security threat to everyone in the area. They are also breaking into businesses and damaging property.
Brazen vagrants refuse to leave some Queen Street businesses alone and shop owners are at their wits end.
Despite the Cleveland SAPS and the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) visiting the street in Kensington and chasing vagrants away on several occasions, vagrants continue to return and make themselves comfortable just outside some businesses’ doors.
A business owner, who did not want his name published, said the vagrants are posing a security threat to everyone in the area. They are also breaking into businesses and damaging property.
In an article published in the EXPRESS last year, a business owner stated that vagrants were threatening to assault and rape women while others were intimidating people.
Business owners are forced to wash off excrement, urine, vomit and glue, and pick up garbage left behind by the vagrants every morning. When some business owners arrive at work in the morning, they have to wait for the vagrants to leave in fear of being attacked. Some business owners are also unable to help clients in the evenings or early in the morning due to the threats made by vagrants.
At a recent public meeting held in Kensington, a business owner commended the JMPD and Cleveland SAPS for their intervention so far but pleaded for action that would result in vagrants moving out of Queen Street.
He questioned why police officers were not charging the vagrants for trespassing.
Warrant Officer Marx Crouse, from the Cleveland SAPS, told the business owner that he must open a case of trespassing.
“Once this happens we will take this case to the public prosecutor,” he said. W/O Crouse said he plans to establish a business forum in Queen Street to address problems experienced by people.
Mrs Lornette Joseph, the I Love Kensington Association (Ilka) chairperson, said she is concerned with the number of vagrants in the suburb.
“The problem is that when vagrants are arrested, they are considered people who have committed a petty offence. They get back on the street quickly as a result of this. We managed to address problems with women and their babies who were standing at intersections. We are trying to address problems with vagrants. I urge people to stop supporting them,” she said.
In his address at a Cleveland Community Police Forum meeting held recently, Sergeant Marius Boolsen, from the JMPD, said he and other officers are trying their best to address the problem. “It is not easy but we are trying,” he said.
