Panhandlers fight over Syracuse corner while nearby businesses complain to police

2012-09-23-dn-homeless.JPGA Syracuse Police officer stands outside a police crime scene van on Sunday near Herald Place and Franklin Street as police investigated the death of Michelle Noce, a homeless person who suffered severe head injuries.

Syracuse, N.Y. -- The top spot in Syracuse for panhandling — the corner of North Franklin Street and Herald Place — is so lucrative that two groups of panhandlers fought Thursday over control of the intersection, according to Syracuse police.

One man went to the hospital for treatment for a cut over his eye when it was over. No one was arrested.

On Saturday, Michelle Noce, 42, was on the corner with a cardboard sign collecting money from passing motorists when she was “jumped,” according to her friend, Randy Armona. Armona, who lived under a nearby bridge with Noce, said Noce was jumped because “someone wanted to take over the corner.”

Noce was later found unconscious with head injuries in a camp created by homeless people under the bridge a block west of the corner. She died just before midnight at Upstate University Hospital.

There are three things that makes the corner of Franklin and Herald a top location in the city for begging, Syracuse Police Deputy Chief Joe Cecile said. It is close to the homeless camp under the bridge leading from West Street to Herald Place, a lot of traffic goes by, and the traffic light puts the panhandlers in close proximity to the motorists, Cecile said.

Local business owners have complained to police about homeless people harassing their customers for money and causing other problems.

Officers chase the panhandlers away, but they frequently return.

Syracuse used to have a city ordinance that made begging illegal, but that was found to be unconstitutional, Cecile said.

“We lost a tool there,” Cecile said.

Businessman John Krell calls the beggars on the corner “a constant source of aggravation.”

He owns Krell Distributing Co. on Herald Place, kitty corner from where the fight took place Thursday night. Krell sees the beggars on a daily basis, and he says the problem is growing.

They hang in teams that Krell calls tribes. One group sleeps under the Herald Place bridge, he said. They steal his wooden pallets to use to heat their camp, he said.

“Some are very hostile,” Krell said. “They’re territorial.”

The panhandlers are aggressive, said Valerie Vendetti, a manager at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. Outside the restaurant, along Willow Street, diners eat at picnic tables.

“They walk up to every customer,” Vendetti said Friday. “I’ve asked them repeatedly not to bother the customers. I’ve gotten right up in their faces.”

It doesn’t work, she said. They come back on another night and do it again.

The beggars also go into the restaurant’s parking lot across the street and bother people as they get out of their cars.

“We call the police and they don’t do anything,” Vendetti said.

Krell also owns the building at 220 Herald Place, where the American Red Cross has its offices. The homeless go into the building’s basement vending-machine area and use its floor as a toilet, Krell said.

Other businesses in the area said they also put up with human waste. At the Dinosaur, employees had to clean up feces found in the parking lot behind the restaurant, Vendetti said. A third business owner, who did not want to be identified, said his business must clean up feces on an almost daily basis.

The Red Cross parks its emergency response vehicles behind its offices. The vehicles have diesel engines and are plugged into an electrical outlet to keep the engines warm and ready to start.

The homeless, Krell said, unplug the vehicles and use the outlets to recharge their cellphones.

Krell said the area around his and a neighboring business is littered with drug paraphernalia. Sometimes he finds people passed out on the sidewalk near the former Rain Lounge, another hangout for the panhandlers, he said.

Krell said Syracuse police respond within 10 minutes when he complains. But, he said, they don’t arrest the panhandlers.

Cecile said police use a vehicle and traffic law to issue traffic tickets to people soliciting on a roadway or median. Depending on the conduct of the beggars, they may also be charged them with disorderly conduct or harassment, he said. Police will also check for outstanding warrants, which could be grounds for an arrest, he said.

In 2009, the Syracuse police launched an enforcement effort using the traffic law. After a two-week period where they only warned panhandlers, police began arresting beggars who held up cardboard signs by the side of the highway exit ramps. Fourteen people were ticketed between June and August 2009, police said. Only two of the 14 were homeless.

Cecile said that they don’t have the manpower to continue that effort. Police do, however, target areas where there is aggressive begging.

Police can also face difficulties evicting homeless people from camps they establish under highway overpasses.

On Sept. 14, Timothy Wilkin, 40 died in a fire at a homeless camp was living in under an I-690 overpass near Catherine Street.

The city closed two homeless camps in 2007, Cecile said, including one complete with tents, that was in the woods off Herald Place. They cleared the woods, Cecile said, and the homeless moved under the bridge.

Syracuse Common Council members weren’t consulted before the first camp, on Pearl Street, was closed and they questioned the appropriateness of the move, according Post-Standard archives.

Cecile said when camps are set up on private property, police evict the homeless if the owner complains. But if the camp is under a state highway, the state needs to become involved.

“You have to have a victim with the will to evict them,” Cecile said.

Contact Robert A. Baker at bbaker@syracuse.com or at 470-2182.

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