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Teens find hangout in downtown park
(by Erin Patricia Griffiths - July 08, 2008)
The downtown area of Hillsdale is thriving, with restaurants, shopping, and a beautiful park with a gazebo that is framed by the railroad tracks and train station. But the beautiful scenery of the downtown is being threatened by garbage and damage to borough property at the hands of local teens who have found a new hangout in Veteran’s Park.
With summer in full-swing, students are out of school and finding themselves with extra time on their hands. Many are choosing to fill their days and nights with friends, grabbing a cup of coffee or sitting outside to talk. But the young adults who have settled upon Hillsdale’s downtown for a meeting place are now going to find themselves being closely observed by the police department.
According to Hillsdale Police Chief Chip Stalter, the main issue has been that large groups of young adults, composed of teens from the Pascack Valley area, are congregating in the park in the evenings, when the weather allows. “Since Starbucks has come in, it is a popular establishment to frequent for kids. The park becomes a convenient place to meet before going to Starbucks or after,” said Stalter.
Although the teens are gathering weeknights as well as weekends, Friday and Saturday nights are the busiest. Stalter says that it is more of how the park is left after the crowds are gone than the gathering of young adults itself. “They leave an inordinate amount of trash strewn around the park, at times leaving damage to the gazebo and other pieces of borough property.”
Over the weekend of June 28-29, three fights that took place in the park were reported to the police department. The first involved a single complaint by a juvenile, the second did not result in a formal complaint, and the third resulted in four juveniles being charged with disorderly conduct.
To combat the issue, the police department is stepping up patrols, both by foot and routine tours of the area by car with the intention of “letting presence be known and seen,” according to Stalter. The department is also enforcing ordinances that prohibit parking on surrounding streets after 10 p.m., and has issued several summons as well as verbal warnings to teens frequenting the park.
Erin Patricia Griffiths' e-mail address is GriffithsE@northjersey.com.
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