Abandoned club house leads to crime

The Nieuw Muckleneuk tennis club in Bronkhorst Street has deteriorated into an abandoned nest where vagrants hide out and animals are allegedly slaughtered.

Victims of crime in the area are convinced that the old club house at the tennis courts is the origin of many of the crimes in the area.

A jewellery business owner and his wife were brutally attacked in a parking lot close to the store and across the street from the tennis club a few weeks ago. Sydney and Sharon Herman, who have been running in the area for almost 15 years, were approaching their vehicle at 17:20 when four armed men allegedly attacked them.

According to Sharon, one of the robbers asked her where the jewellery was and used two cable ties to tie her hands behind her back. She was then shoved onto the back seat of, what she explains to have been, a black vehicle.

Sydney told Rekord that while his wife was tied up, two others grabbed him and tried to shove him into the boot of the same vehicle. When he tried to fight back, he was hit over the head with one of the robber’s weapons.

“When I saw Sydney lying in a pool of blood I thought he was dead,” Sharon said. “I screamed and the men ran off.”

Sydney awoke in a hospital with 94 stitches to his head.

“Whether the criminals come from the building or not, we feel uncomfortable here,” Sharon said. “We are losing customers, who are being threatened for their money. If the situation is not attended to, we will be forced to close down,” she added.

Councillor Siobhan Muller of ward 82 said the metro must demolish the abandoned structure immediately.

“The property is zoned for sporting facilities and this sad state of disuse and abandonment by the Tshwane metro is unacceptable,” she said.

According to Muller a court case has been pending since the property was supposed to be sold to a developer in 1999 but irregularities were picked up. Since then the site itself has fallen into disuse and disrepair until vagrants and alleged criminals took over the burnt out building.

It is unclear if the vagrants have running water or access to toilets. The stench, however, suggests they do not.

“Despite numerous calls from residents and business owners in the area, as well as myself, nothing has been done to secure the dangerous and abandoned site,” she said.

“Until such times as the property is transferred into another owners name, the responsibility lies purely with the metro,” she added.

“Excuses of lack of funding to demolish the building, lack of action from the metro and a hanging court case that has been dragging on for more than ten years are negatively affecting the rate payers of the city once again,” Muller concluded.