Greater police presence in business district to continue, chief says.
By: Roger Alvarado
In 2003, lights and signs for the Curves for Women fitness center on South Main Street were broken, and the business had to contend with trespassers.
"We have had a couple strange people come in here," said Debbie Hallman, the owner of Curves for Women located at 19 S. Main St. "We’ve only been here two years, but in the past we had to call the police on a guy. There’s a Catholic charities organization next door so there’s a lot of traffic flow and sometimes there could be questionable people at times."
In response to Ms. Hallman’s concerns, and complaints from other businesses, Manville police have increased both foot patrols and car patrols.
Since September, those who shop and conduct business along Manville’s business district along South Main Street may have noticed a slightly greater police presence.
And borough Police Chief Jack Petrovic says the efforts are improving what he calls "quality of life issues."
"People had been gathering and hanging out in front of buildings … and we received varied complaints from people that they can’t walk to a store without a group hanging in the area or even scaring some of the older senior citizens," Chief Petrovic said.
Chief Petrovic said that in some instances arrests have been made and he feels that the additional enforcement is paying off.
"It was creating a general nuisance so we decided to deal with it through public relations-type of enforcement," Chief Petrovic said. "We’ve been pretty successful and we are planning on continuing it."
Ms. Hallman says she’s glad to hear that borough police are paying such close attention to the area.
"We do have women here who are leaving the facility every night to go to their cars, so it is comforting to know that there are extra patrols," she said.
She says she feels the patrols have been effective.
The additional patrols occur during both afternoons and evenings and are staggered throughout the week, Chief Petrovic said.
The added patrols are in addition to regular patrols and don’t affect or detract in any way from the department’s usual way of patrolling the area, Chief Petrovic said.
"It works out to do it this way because the officers conducting these additional patrols are strictly not worrying about vehicles and speeders," Chief Petrovic said. "They deal only with these areas."
Ms. Hallman says she hopes that the borough’s ongoing efforts to revitalize the Main Street area helps bring about even more positive change to the business district.
Either way she feels that South Main Street businesses like hers are definitely benefiting from a much stronger police presence in the area.
Chief Petrovic says he anticipates the policy to continue indefinitely and expects that the added patrols will allow both customers and business owners to conduct business with less worry throughout what is expected to be a busy holiday shopping season.

