Paul Bass Photo
When Roger Williams and his son stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts for their daily late-afternoon flatbread, they discovered a new twist to their routine: no place to sit.
A man was murdered in that Dunkin’ Donuts, at the corner of Derby and Norton in the heart of the West River neighborhood, on Dec. 14. Then on Feb. 16, around the same time Williams (pictured) usually pops in with his son after picking him up from Barnard School, somebody shot a patron there in the head.
So the neighborhood’s top cop, Lt. Ray Hassett, convinced the store’s owner to take action: Remove the chairs at 3 p.m. each day so people don’t loiter. He had previously convinced the owner to keep lights on after closing time. (The owner couldn’t be reached for comment.)
Hassett said he aims to move the dealers and those causing trouble from the area, to alter the sense that they own it.
So right at 3 p.m. Wednesday, two staffers walked out from behind their counter redolent of Boston cremes, old-fashioneds, and hazelnut coffee. Then they methodically began to collect all the chairs in the room, carefully stacking them in the corner. Yet the restaurant was to remain open for five more hours.
Starting at 6, they said, the front door would be locked and customers would need to use the drive-through. Except for the occasional regular, for whom they’ll unlock the door.
Allan Appel Photo
Lt. Hassett and Tyisha Walker at the Dwight community meeting.
Hassett reported on his efforts at Tuesday night’s monthly Dwight Community Management Team meeting.
“It was a fishbowl there,” he said. Victims are illuminated inside the restaurant. Shooters with a beef against them have easy aim through the glass.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” said Hassett. “The tables are bolted, but we can [remove] the chairs.”
“If someone we know comes to the door, one of the regulars,” one of the staffers said, “we let them in.”
“It was becoming a hangout for dealers,” he said, a hard core group of people whom the street has claimed.
He said the target of the no-seating approach is not organized gangs, but more informal groups. “It’s more impulsive behavior,” he said. “A lot of these disputes that end up in shooting [in public places] start on Facebook.”
“Many of the [recently] laid-off cops were young and they knew these kids. There is no substitute for relationships,” Hassett said.
The Dunkin’ staffers on duty Wednesday afternoon said the recent violence has not hurt business. (They declined to be named or photographed.) The trouble is not in the restaurant, they said, but outside. “They shouldn’t be laying off cops,” one of the workers suggested.
“I always feel safe,” said one of the workers, who has been on the job five months.
Shortly before 6 p.m. Wednesday one chair did appear in the Dunkin’ dining room. Greg Cox (pictured) was sitting in it. He had asked for the chair.
The staff knows Cox, a retired security guard. He lives a block away behind Berger Apartments. When he’s not busy volunteering for the North Haven fire department, he stops by Dunkin’ to help take out the trash and to sip a soda.
Roger Williams said he’d like to sit inside with his son so their flatbread doesn’t turn cold out in the winter evening. Williams, who works at an energy plant in Bridgeport, stops by Dunkin’ on the way home after picking up his son from Barnard’s after-school program.
Williams said that while he doesn’t like the new policy (“It’s kind of fucked up for people who don’t be there” causing trouble), he said he understands it and even supports it. He said he recognizes the need to address out-of-control violence.
He then suggested a slightly different rule: “If you’re not buying something, you can’t hang around. If you do buy something, after it’s done, you leave. When it’s gone, you’re gone. No loitering.”
Roger Williams.
Well... at least we now know that the old adage that cops are always eating donuts is not true.
I live down the street about a 5 minute walk (i don't cycle, seems a bit too e elitist for me) and have been here a few times. Let me tell you, at all hours of the day it's dangerous. Just shut the place down. put up a police substation or a gun store, but get rid of this killing field.