THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607190176
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: On the Street
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: 65 lines
It was too much to hope for, I suppose.
Virginia Beach couldn't go one year - not one summer - without having gangs of out-of-control punks take over the resort Oceanfront at night.
Despite the fact that the chief pulls virtually every police officer on the payroll from all corners of the city and puts him or her on the Oceanfront from April through September, this unacceptable behavior persists.
The result is that big-spending, fun-seeking tourists and big-spending and fun-seeking locals are driven away from Oceanfront hotels, restaurants and shops in droves. Some will never return, and they pass the word along to friends and neighbors.
It should finally dawn on our highly paid City Hall big wigs and fat-cat merchants that drastic steps are needed to stop conduct deemed uncivilized in most Western nations - especially since it drives away those who prop up the local economy so beautifully and so profitably.
But it hasn't. Why?
Why hasn't a concerted effort been made years ago to quash deportment that most people - even the punks themselves - would not tolerate in their own homes or neighborhoods?
Are the powers that be too weak-kneed, too touchy-feely to crack down on repugnant young jerks who think they own the Oceanfront? Are the merchants and the taxpayers willing to hand over an asset that is a major source of its annual tax revenues to those who refuse to observe common civility or decency?
The answer at this point seems to be: yes, yes and yes. The word is out now about Virginia Beach and it is the business operators and the taxpayers who will suffer.
Although the city has enacted residential parking restrictions in neighborhoods closest to the resort strip, beefed up police presence
and ballyhooed the Oceanfront as a jolly good place for having a ``family fun'' vacation, punks keep coming to the Oceanfront in waves after the sun sets.
They gather in front of Atlantic Avenue bars, on the Boardwalk and roam at will on side streets, uttering filth and threatening anyone who looks too old, too young, too weak or too few in number to challenge them.
A July 18 letter on The Virginian-Pilot editorial page from Ted E. Lee of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, who vacationed with his family in Virginia Beach June 23 to 29, illustrates the problem all too well. The is an excerpt from Lee's letter:
``We looked forward to the Virginia Beach boardwalk and shopping along `hotel row,' '' Lee wrote. ``But this year it was not to be. We could not believe the gangs of preteen and teenage youths that now roam Atlantic Avenue using the filthiest language; male and female youths grabbing and groping each other in public, bumping and pushing into pedestrians and not even caring. We even saw a purse being snatched. One tourist, upon being almost knocked down by one youth, was told to go home and ``don't come back if you don't like it.''
On Wednesday night, a Tidewater Winds concert at the 24th Street Park was disrupted by a gang of punks, who pushed their way into an audience of basically over-40 listeners to yell obscenities, grab their crotches and otherwise rampage at will. As a result, several alarmed patrons snatched up their blankets and lounge chairs and hastily departed, one witness recalled.
If local merchants and politicos really want to make Virginia Beach a vacation mecca as they have said so often in the past, then they'd better hitch up their britches, roll up their sleeves and do something about it. If they don't have the backbone to do it, then they should stand aside and let someone else with some moxie do it. by CNB