THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 3, 1994 TAG: 9412030007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
Is it fair that law-abiding citizens in some high-crime neighborhoods in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach can't get a pizza delivered to their door? Maybe not, but life isn't fair.
After nearly 100 robberies and assaults on pizza-delivery drivers in just three years, the pizza companies have made a rational business decision. It also happens to be a humanitarian decision. Some neighborhoods are simply off-limits because the revenue to be gained is not worth the risk of injury to employees. That is a cost of doing business they are not willing to pay.
The pizza companies have realized that one way to prevent crime is to avoid it, to refuse to offer a target to predators. But it's a sad commentary on our times that there are so many neighborhoods where it is taking your life in your hands to attempt a simple delivery. It is one more cost of crime.
The threat of violence diminishes everyone's freedom. Citizens no longer feels free to travel many streets at night. Pizza companies aren't free to make a buck. And many customers aren't free to call out for dinner and see it delivered.
It's a situation distressingly reminiscent of the Old West. The bad guys have taken over parts of the town. The solution is for the townspeople to reclaim their neighborhoods and deliver them from crime.
Police know where the high-crime areas are, and if they don't the pizza companies can show them maps. A heavy police presence is needed. So-called community policing works.
Despite a tragically bungled sting on the Peninsula some months back, aggressive efforts to go after the bad guys should be considered. Steps are being taken to make punishment swift and sure when perpetrators are caught and convicted. That too can help.
But neighbors must also band together to make their neighborhoods inhospitable to crime, by keeping watch for criminal activities, by reporting crime and cooperating with law-enforcement efforts.
It took years for crime to take control of parts of our cities. It will take time to fight back. But there's no other alternative unless we are prepared to abandon one neighborhood after another to violence and barricade ourselves in our homes. And even if we do that, it's only a matter of time until crime will come knocking at our door. by CNB