Van Nuys : Garage Sale to Help Form Business Watch

After years of criticizing ill-kept businesses for luring criminals to their neighborhoods, a group of Van Nuys residents will each take a little something from their own homes to keep crime away from local merchants.

A garage sale by a coalition of Neighborhood Watch groups called the Guardian Eyes of Van Nuys is expected to raise funds to create a new Business Watch in the city’s leading area for reported rapes. The sale will be held from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 15242 Covello St., Van Nuys.

The sale will raise funds for the year-old Neighborhood Watch group and help pay start-up costs, including a newsletter, for the Business Watch proposed by Leslie Bashaar, a local real estate agent and activist for the Guardian Eyes, which represents about 1,200 homeowners.

Bashaar said the new Business Watch would be located between Saticoy and Raymer streets and Van Nuys and Sepulveda boulevards.