Drugs, knives and gangs

By Danielle Galvin
TRADERS in a strip of shops in Beaconsfield have spoken out about the drug deals, knife fights and intimidating gangs of young people that are destroying their part of town.
In last week’s Gazette, Pakenham police said they had spoken to shoppers and traders about the groups of “unruly” youths.
“We’ve spoken to a number of Beaconsfield shop owners and shoppers who had said there had been an issue with some adverse behaviour around the shops,” Senior Sergeant Trevor Vondrasek said.
Sen Sgt Vondrasek said the issue was raised with police in the past month or so.
He said he believed it was mostly high-school age students congregating around the shops after school.
But traders on the strip of shops opposite the plaza say the problem is much worse and congregating groups of young people were increasingly dangerous.
Joey Debrincat, who owns Foxy Salon and the Corridor Café, said it had been going on for a while on his side of the Old Princes Highway.
“It has escalated after they got a security guard on the other side, it seems to have moved them over this side of the road,” he said.
Mr Debrincat said there were drug deals in the carpark behind the strip of shops and he had witnessed a knife fight.
“There’s a group of 15 to 16-year-olds that hang around all day long – particularly after 12pm once they’ve gotten out of bed,” he said.
“They are destroying this side of the street.”
But he said the people hanging around weren’t just teenagers from nearby high schools.
“Some of them are 24-25,” he said.
“It’s been continuously bad for the past six months.”
Cr Brett Owen has been liasing with the local police and had spoken to the traders about the issue.
“It has been a bit of an issue and I spoke to them a couple of months ago,” he said.
“It’s important to say that it is only a handful of people who are behaving in an anti-social manner.”
The Central Ward councillor said he was disappointed that the historical Beaconsfield sign had been stolen last week.
“We believe it happened on Tuesday or Wednesday,” he said.
The sign was restored about 18 months ago thanks to a historical grant.
“It’s disappointing that the sign has been stolen and police are investigating the matter,” he said.
“If anyone knows about it, I would urge them to contact Pakenham police.”
Cr Owen said he was pleased that the police presence had increased in recent weeks and said the council’s My Bus would visit Beaconsfield on a weekly basis.
Julie, one of the business owners in the strip of shops, said she did not want her last name used or her business identified. She said the situation was “very scary”.
“Most mornings I’m out there cleaning up their cigarette butts but it gets a lot worse than that,” she said.
Another problem raised by traders was the fact that the groups of unruly young people were scaring off their customers and intimidating staff.
“The cars park out the front and customers don’t want to come inside,” Julie said.
“There’s more and more of them – boys and girls.”