Allan Appel Photo
Modern-Day location for the oldest profession.
“The sex workers there! My god. My grandchildren are playing on the front porch, and they have to see that!”
That’s how longtime Exchange Street resident Cindy Calvert expressed her concern about a significant, in her view, an uptick in prostitute activity in the dumpster area behind the Fair Haven School, which faces Grand Avenue and backs into Exchange Street.
The array of blue dumpsters, in Calvert’s view, are the culprits — not necessarily the sex workers or the cops who do respond to her calls. If the dumpsters, which provide concealment, were removed, that might make a difference, she said.
That idea, among others to address the problem, was at the heart of a lively discussion Thursday night at the most recent monthly meeting of the Fair Haven Community Management Team (FHCMT).
Calvert and several other old-timers in the neighborhood acknowledged that sexual activity has been going on there for years, late at night and early into the morning hours. Calvert said the activity is visible to young children walking to school.
Calvert tells a not-new tale.
She has all too often seen women changing clothes or performing sexual acts by the dumpsters. Other factors help conceal the activity, she said, like a lack of lighting.
She said she’s been in touch with the Board of Ed several times, and yet the activity goes on. ‘I have no complaint against the cops,” she said. “They get there,” but the women don’t seem even to scatter, she said, when officers arrive.
Calvert wondered aloud if there is a pause in arresting prostitutes.
Fair Haven District Manager Lt. David Zannelli acknowledged there is a pause in effect, while the city reexamines its policy toward arresting prostitutes. (Click here to read about that.)
A great believer in lighting as a deterrent to unwanted activities, Zannelli said the more LED lights put in at that location, the better.
Another attendee at the meeting mentioned that available outlets on the outside of the school building also draw the sex workers there to recharge their phones,
Fair Haven Alder Ernie Santiago suggested the dumpsters be fenced in and the truck drivers needing to empty them be given a key. Another participant suggested that the dumpsters be put flush against a building to help to drive away the activity.
Board of Ed Chief Operating Officer Will Clark sent an email saying the problem is primarily a criminal issue. He praised Lt. Zannelli for providing increased enforcement in the past to eliminate the problem from school property.
“We have taken steps to deactivate the outlets and have increased lighting as part of our LED project. We are also in the process of working with DPW to replace all the blue dumpsters. While we do not have a lot of options at relocation, we can strategically work to place the new dumpsters,” Clark wrote.
Steinhardt and Zannelli.
FHCMT Co-chair David Steinhardt asked if Will Clark had provided a timeline for when sufficient LED lights would be substituted. He urged the alders to nudge Clark in this regard.
“End of the day,” Clark added in his email after the meeting, “we need folks to report criminal activity around schools and we will work with the PD to eliminate this activity as proactively as possible.”
Which was precisely the end-of-meeting advice Zannelli reiterated for Calvert and others: “If you see people” engaged in public sex or other illegal activity, he said, call the police “and also follow up with a text to me.”
Police Department Spokesman Officer David Hartman further added in a follow-up email that cops have recently focused on the quality of life impacts to communities where prostitution is more prevalent and the need to afford sex-workers resources and a means to get out of this dangerous “business”.
“In other words, we’re likely not arresting our way out of this problem,” he said. “We’re not ringing the dinner bell for ‘Johns’ either. If we develop probable cause that someone is in New Haven to patronize a sex-worker, we’ll arrest them.”
He further pointed out that sex-workers are some of the most vulnerable people in a community.
“They’re more often victims of assaults, rape, and abduction,” he said. “A way out is often very difficult. We’d much rather see them find that way than add to the problem by piling on criminal charges. All of this said, prostitution is a crime and we’re not hiding from dealing with it.”