Winnetka : Residents Renew Call to Block Off Alley

To the two dozen residents of a Winnetka neighborhood between Saticoy and Valerio streets, the alley behind their homes is a corridor of graffiti, trash, drug deals and public sex.

To police, the problems are overblown.

For more than a year, neighbors have been trying to persuade city officials to install locked gates at each end of the passageway that runs behind houses along Winnetka and Quakertown avenues. Police remain unconvinced that gates are needed.

“In reviewing the crime statistics since January of this year,” Police Chief Willie L. Williams wrote in a July 21 letter rejecting the request, “there has not been an incident reported in . . . the alley, nor is there any ongoing criminal activity in this area.”

On Monday, a city crew cleaned up much of the debris that had cluttered the alley for years, but residents said they don’t expect the problems to go away with the trash.

“I would say for about two solid years I’ve been painting” over graffiti, said Tony Czarnecki, a resident of the same Winnetka Avenue home for nearly 44 years. Today, his windows are covered with a network of steel.

“I’m living behind bars,” he said.

Sandra Hunt, a registered nurse who has led the effort to block the alley, said she is simply trying to protect the neighborhood, noting that residents are willing to pay for the gates’ installation.

“These people have worked all their lives to have their homes,” she said.

Although she continues to fly an American flag at her home in support of the LAPD, Hunt said she is disappointed that the Police Department doesn’t share residents’ feelings about the alley. Still, she said her fight is far from over.

“We want the whole thing reviewed again,” she said.