Councilman Halstad In Favor of a No-Loitering Law on Main Street

City Council President Damian Halstad said at a city council meeting earlier this week that he wants to see the city get a little more aggressive in dealing with the loitering issues on Main Street.

As originally reported by Patch, a recent assault on Main Street business owner Toni Pomeroy spurred other Main Street business owners to speak out about challenges they face with people who loiter and create problems on Main Street.

"We are going to have to make some decisions and take some risks," Halstad said. "I would like to see if we can pass a loitering law that can pass muster. I don’t think we can ignore the fact that there are too many people on Main Street with nothing to do except cause trouble, and they’re doing it.

"We need to express some indignation on this whole thing. I don’t think it should be tolerated," Halstad said. " ... I’d like to have an enforceable statute if we can get it and then give the [police] chief authority to enforce it. I think we ought to be aggressive."

Mayor Kevin Utz said that he and other city staff have been holding roundtable meetings with Main Street business owners for the past two years. As a result of the roundtable meetings, the city created a plan to address issues facing Main Street business owners, including loitering. The plan was approved by the council in December.

According to Utz, the goal of Friday's meeting was originally to share the plan with local business owners. However, Utz said that as a result of last week's events, he will instead open the meeting for discussion and to hear ideas from business owners.

"It is the most difficult part of government when you're trying to eliminate a source of contention among citizens who use our streets on a daily basis and business owners who operate their businesses every day on Main Street," Utz said.

During the public comment portion of the city council meeting, Toni Pomeroy, owner of Pomeroy Jewelers, said that this is a community problem and no one party bears the responsibility for solving it.

"I don't think that there's an easy solution. If there was it would have been fixed by now," Pomeroy said. "We’ve got the attention where it needs to be so let's work on it together. The worst thing that could come from all this is for the fault to be put on one [party]."

The meeting is scheduled for Friday at 8 a.m. at John Street Quarters, 28 John Street.