Downtown Norwich business owners are asking the City of Norwich Common Council to address loitering in the business district. (Photo by Sarah Genter)

NORWICH — Downtown business owners attended the November 21 common council meeting to voice their concerns over loitering in downtown Norwich.

Business owners from both North and South Broad Street told council members about the many challenges they’ve faced relating to loitering and homelessness. Complaints included individuals sleeping on streets or in doorways, yelling at customers as they go into a shop or restaurant, urinating in alleyways, digging through garbage cans, smoking, and selling drugs, among other things.

In total, nine business owners addressed the council and spoke about their concerns with downtown loitering.

Kozmo’s Hometown Eatery Owner Savannah Collins said a large portion of her day is spent dealing with individuals loitering outside her restaurant.

“About 15 percent of my day is taken up with dealing with the homelessness and the loitering outside of the restaurant and out on the street. It is impacting the businesses on North Broad Street,” she said.

“There are often times where I have to call the police, who always respond. That’s not the issue; they always respond,” she continued. “But the point is I have to leave what I’m doing because somebody is doing something outside like sleeping in my doorway, leaving an adult diaper by my sidewalk for me to pick up, maybe they’re selling drugs out front or smoking, or just generally hanging out. They were yelling at my customers when they were coming in.”

Bernadette Giglio, owner of the downtown Norwich hair salon Cut Above for 40 years, said she has lost business as a result of loitering, as many of her clients are seniors and are afraid to come to the salon.

“I don’t want to be kicked out of my business or pushed away because we have been so consumed with our homeless,” said Giglio. “I’m frustrated and tired as a business owner. I think it’s time to step up to the plate and be responsible for North Broad Street.”

The business owners urged council members to address loitering in the downtown district, possibly through a no loitering ordinance. At a previous council meeting, City of Norwich Mayor Brian Doliver had suggested putting ‘no loitering’ signs in store windows as a short-term solution.

“If store owners or property owners would help us out and put a ‘no loitering’ sign in the window then the police will enforce it. They’ll enforce it anyway, but it’s helpful to have a ‘no loitering’ sign in the window so they can point to the sign and say that there’s no loitering,” he explained. “If the store owner does not want to do a ‘no loitering’ sign, we will still attempt to enforce it. It just makes it a little harder when the police are discussing it with those individuals.”

As it stands, business owners said “no loitering” signs in store windows don’t do enough, and Collins said having them in every window will make downtown uninviting for customers.

“I think that putting 35 ‘no loitering’ signs in the windows of the downtown business district is ridiculous. Like, how welcoming is that? Would you want to walk into a town and see ‘no loitering,’ ‘no loitering,’ ‘no loitering’? It makes no sense,” said Collins. “I shouldn’t have to say, okay, there's 45 people on the street, in front of the ‘no loitering’ signs, doing whatever. It’s crazy.”

The council is currently working on a nuisance ordinance to address specific properties, with a public hearing to allow residents to provide input scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, December 19.

As for a no loitering ordinance, Doliver said that would take more time to implement.

Patrick McNeil, owner of McNeil Jewelers, told council members if they’re going to create an ordinance to make sure it’s solid and worthwhile.

“What I really want to make sure is if the council is going to do something, make sure it’s got some real teeth in it, because if it doesn’t the police are going to be wasting their time shooing them away,” he said. “If you don’t duly take charge and make this stick, it’s not going to happen. Nothing is going to happen.”

Collins said she created a petition stating there is a problem with loitering in downtown Norwich, which 35 downtown business owners have signed. However, she said some didn’t sign because they were scared of retaliation.

Ultimately, she said she just wants downtown Norwich streets to be safe.

“Even if I don’t make it in business, I would like it to be safe to walk downtown Norwich,” Collins said. “Just having some basic boundaries for how you conduct yourself in the middle of town as a human would be important. It’s important to me and it’s important to the people on our block who are dealing with this. It should be important to everybody.”

“I really think that there has to be some kind of guideline, some kind of line to be drawn where it’s like, this is unacceptable for the business district,” she added. “If you can’t walk safely downtown at night on a main street, where can you walk safely?”