Bar teen drinkers

By Dion Teasdale
HEALESVILLE Walk Shopping Centre businesses are calling for nuisance behaviour at the centre to be stamped out.
Business operators have labelled the entrance to the centre as a ‘hotspot’ for underage drinking, drug abuse, vandalism, graffiti and violence.
They have raised concerns about the number of young people, aged between 13 and 17, congregating out the front of their shops, especially late into the evening on Friday and Saturday nights.
Some shop owners claim the area can be besieged by up to 40 teenagers at a time, drinking, smoking, spitting, littering and using abusive language.
They claim the behaviour of the teenagers is intimidating customers and having a negative financial impact on their businesses.
Some business operators would like to see security cameras installed, more security staff employed, while others would like to see increased police patrols of the shopping centre.
There have even been suggestions of a curfew to help parents keep teenagers off the streets, and a universal call for more activities in the town to occupy young people.
The issue of nuisance behaviour at the shopping centre came into the spotlight last week after reports of hooligans terrorising staff and customers at the Coles Express service station in Healesville appeared in the Mail.
Andromaches Pizza and Pasta owner Vicki Morfonios said the behaviour of young people congregating outside the shopping centre had deteriorated over the past 12 months.
“Not all the kids hanging out the front of the shops are bad kids, but they are behaving badly when they get together and it is getting worse,” she said.
Mrs Morfonios said she and fellow business operators regularly witnessed young people as young as 13 and 14 drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, and vandalising centre furniture and toilets.
“It gets so bad here sometimes that some of our customers won’t come down,” she said.
Healesville Video Ezy manager Tony Astrinakis said the level of underage drinking in a designated alcohol-free zone was out of control.
“I personally receive two or three re-quests a day from underage kids asking me if I will buy alcohol for them,” he said.
Healesville Walk Charcoal Chicken owner, Spiros Stivactas, said some of his customers also reported being intimated by the groups of young people, and he said he would like to see more activities offered to young people in the area.
Terry’s Meats owner, Len Chandler, said he had witnessed young people purchasing slabs of alcohol for teenagers as young as 13.
“The kids sit out the front of the shops and drink whole slabs and this leads to fights and aggressive behaviour, which is not good for our customers,” he said.
Former Lilydale police officer, Senior Sergeant Vin Butera, who will be based in Healesville for the next six months, said it would be part of his new role to address the concerns raised by business operators.
“I’ve spoken at length with local police about the issues at the shopping centre and I’ll be working to address them,” he said.
Snr Sgt Butera said Yarra Ranges Youth Resources officer, Senior Constable Sally Jensen, would be brought on board to work with young people.
“We are going to work at the grassroots level to see what we can do to assist the young people involved in this behaviour find alternatives,” he said.
Healesville police Sergeant Tony Van Gorp said the behaviour of some young people gathering around centre was an issue for the whole community to address.
“Police are keen to work with families, community groups, welfare organisations and the young people themselves to address these issues.”
A spokeswoman for the shopping centre’s management company, Gross Waddell, said the company did not wish to comment at this stage.