Threats and intimidations. Residents and entrepreneurs of the Kleine Berg and surrounding areas experience a lot of nuisance from homeless people and drug traffickers. “It has consequences for safety. It is close to the pavement cafés.”
Previously, there were already concerns about this area due to the growing group of homeless people and drug traffickers. They stop at the parking lot, the Fens site near the Kleine Berg. “They often start around ten or eleven o’clock and are there until late in the evening,” explains an employee of a restaurant. There have been a few incidents. “The other day a homeless man was disturbing a woman, another man said something about it and was attacked by three men.”
Safety
“I was beaten up a while back,” says a woman who lives nearby. “A man took money out of my purse, I turned him around and was hit in the face. I don’t remember what happened next.” The man was arrested by the police. “I don’t feel safe here anymore.”
Not new
It is not new for the neighbourhood that there is nuisance from drug traffickers. They do see that the problems are increasing. “It has been like this for a long time, but over the past six months I have been seeing them more and more,” says a local resident. Residents, but also employees of nearby cafes, say they no longer walk past the parking lot alone. “We are often asked to accompany the female staff, for example when they have to take out garbage bags,” says one of the employees. “It has often happened that they have been threatened or shouted at while throwing away waste.”
Aggressive
A number of entrepreneurs are looking into whether there is a possibility to arrange some kind of neighbourhood watch. “There have been calls to set up some kind of neighbourhood watch, but that is very difficult,” says bar owner Mathilde Jan Retera. “We have also noticed that when we approach drug dealers or homeless people, they react quite aggressively.” For the rest, the entrepreneurs do not plan to take any measures themselves. “We will inform the police, that’s all we can do.”
Cameras
The municipality has now installed a camera. There are more to come. The municipality maintains close contact with local residents and entrepreneurs and wants to look at additional ways to combat and prevent nuisance.
We recognize the problem. Discussions are taking place with those involved to make interventions and at the same time enforce the nuisance. We are also in close contact with residents and business organisations in this neighbourhood and we respond to reports and signals from the neighbourhood,” a spokesperson said. “We are also examining what additional measures such as area bans can be used to reduce nuisance. .”
Source: Studio040
For Eindhoven News: Lila Mehrez
