Community Efforts Put a Dent in Crime

While a new study indicates that store owners across Southern California feel petty crime is interfering with their businesses, shopkeepers in Ventura County say stepped-up enforcement has made them feel safer.

A poll by The Times and USC’s Marshall School of Business revealed widespread frustration in the Southern California business community over graffiti vandals, vagrants and thieves.

Though small business owners interviewed in the six-county survey said crime was less a problem than taxes and government regulation, it was still a concern.

Of those who responded, 42% said graffiti and vandalism often cost them money and 34% reported that drug sales and loitering are common nuisances.

Ventura County businesses were sampled in the survey, but so few responded that the results were left out of the final document.

“We have a lot of programs here that work against those sorts of things, and they seem to be working because I haven’t heard anything,” said Dianne Gennette, director of operations at the Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce. “Which is good. . . .It’s one less thing business owners here have to worry about.”

While vandalism and theft occur in Ventura County, the incidence is low.

“That’s definitely a credit to the work of the community and police,” said Simi Valley City Councilman Paul Miller. “The reason those kinds of crimes aren’t a large problem is because of the work of police and the community.”

Simi Valley, annually listed as one of the nation’s safest cities, has pursued several strategies to protect businesses from nuisance crime.

The city’s Graffiti Abatement Program, established nine years ago, has succeeded in reducing the number of tagging incidents from more than 4,000 in 1993 to about 800 this year.

Operating seven days a week, program workers erase the scribblings of taggers within a day after they are reported. One recent arrest resulted in a $9,200 fine against a teenager.

“As far as a crime deterrent, this is a great way of doing that,” said Mike Nisito, coordinator of the city’s anti-graffiti program.

“And what’s helped this program is that the community has really taken a hold of it. . . .I only have two eyeballs, and they realize that and are happy to help out.”

The Simi Valley Police Department also notifies area businesses about check fraud schemes operating in the city.

Last week, the City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting camping within city limits. The ordinance, which will go into effect next month, is expected to have the greatest impact on the city’s homeless, who have been the subject of complaints from residents and business owners.

“We don’t want to get to the point where we have panhandlers,” Miller said. “And this will do something to address that.”

Ventura has long had a problem with panhandlers along Main Street, haranguing shoppers for spare change, littering and using doorways and parking lots as bathrooms.

Zack Wood, manager of the Book Mall, said there was a time when shooing away sleeping vagrants and mopping up their excrement were daily chores.

But Wood said he has seen marked improvement since the opening of the police storefront and increased foot patrols on Main Street. The city’s campaign has made a major dent in public drunkenness and illegal camping, officials say.

Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 1, police issued 411 citations for drinking in public and 264 for public drunkenness. An additional 94 were written for illegal camping.

Of those, 89% involved homeless people west of Seaward Avenue.

The homeless “are still out there, but it’s different,” Wood said.

“Community policing is that big catchword nowadays, but it’s that holistic approach that’s working,” said Lt. Carl Handy of the Ventura Police Department.

“You know it still amazes me when some city scratches its head wondering what to do,” said Nisito, the graffiti abatement official. “It’s not rocket science, it’s just work.”

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