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THE POST | News | Sports | Culture | Business | Free Forum
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| Camden Business Curfew Coming? |
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 by: Rebel - Havertown, PA
started: 06/13/11 11:42 am | updated: 06/13/11 11:42 am |
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A business curfew for Camden is to be voted on this week.
The proposal is designed to curb drug-related crime, which Camden police say often occurs near after-hours eateries.
Every restaurant, retail store, and fast-food joint in the city's nine square miles would close from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekdays and midnight to 6 a.m. on weekends.
Exceptions to the curfew would be bars and taverns with liquor licenses and automotive services at gas stations.
Opponents say the proposal is anti business, but Camden officials argue that it would improve quality of life. The bill is scheduled to be put up for Council approval after a second reading Tuesday.
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According to neighborhood leaders, some late-night and 24-hour takeouts attract people more interested in buying drugs than Chinese food or fried chicken.
Police say drug customers from neighboring municipalities often become the victims of crimes near the late-night establishments, especially on Mount Ephraim Avenue near Virtua Camden hospital.
About 12:30 a.m. on a weeknight last month, a 34-year-old Blackwood man approached two men outside China Garden on Mount Ephraim Avenue to buy drugs, according to a police report. When he headed back to his 2004 Mercury Mountaineer, the men followed him and "demanded the vehicle while holding a knife," according to the report. They stole the SUV, but were apprehended shortly after the suburbanite reported the crime.
A few weeks earlier, a couple of blocks away, a 37-year-old Runnemede man's vehicle was stolen at gunpoint shortly before midnight when he gave a ride to drug dealers from whom he had bought cocaine near a Chinese restaurant on Chase Street.
Neither of the two victims returned phone calls seeking comment.
In recent months, city residents have been shot and killed late at night on the 1500 block of Mount Ephraim, where a Crown Fried Chicken and a few Chinese stores have extended hours.
Owners of the city's Crown Fried Chicken franchises say the city should focus on the crime outside their stores rather than impose a business curfew.
"This is very bad for us, for the business, and very bad for Camden," said Ali Khan, an owner of the Crown Fried Chicken on Mount Ephraim Avenue and another, at Broadway and Martin Luther King Boulevard, that is open 24 hours.
"There are a lot of situations in Camden," Khan said when asked if crime was a problem outside his restaurant. "Before Crown Chicken, was there no crime, no shootings?"
Several New Jersey cities have some type of business curfew.
In Newark, take-out restaurants within 200 feet of a residential zone may not conduct business between 2 and 6 a.m., and all liquor stores must close at 10 p.m.
In Jersey City, a 2004 ordinance prohibits restaurants and retail establishments in certain areas from operating between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. The curfew, which survived a court challenge by the owner of a Crown Fried Chicken, is focused on 12 streets that officials say are a haven for criminal activity, city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said.
In Camden, businesses that violate the curfew could have their operating licenses suspended or revoked.
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