What’s going on in the City of Manassas with all the loitering, pan-handling and shady goings-on near Harris Pavillion and the convenience stores? I keep hearing as many complaints about these sites as I do about Coverstone 7-11. It is impossbile to go in to the Grant Avenue 7-11 (between Center and Church) without being approached and pestered for ‘change.’ Some of them get aggressive when you ignore them.
The store clerks seem to be afraid of the people that hang out in front of there. The loiters go in and steal from the store then they hang out and intimidate the approaching customers, that is when they aren’t too busy slithering around back to complete their ‘deals.’
This loitering has been an on-going problem for several years. Maybe it is time for the City cops to start making routine stop-bys and run some of these jokers off. For the record, my sources tell me it isn’t Latinos. The people are mainly whites and blacks. There are very few Latinos loitering. I have also been told to advise women, both young and old, to not go near that 7-11, especially at night.
It sounds like it is time for this neighorhood to be cleaned up and for the riff raff to move on. The City of Manassas has a wonderful Old Town section that is being destroyed by this element. The City has great cops also. Perhaps people just move on and don’t complain. However, if you can’t go in a store or to a pavillion because of the loiterers being obnoxious, this hurts the City and it hurts the City’s revenue. There are enough good City people who are part of this blog that I know this matter will get the full attention of those who can and will fix the problem. I have promised my souces this.
