Published: June 26, 2008 12:03 am      

CITY OF TONAWANDA: Making noise

Kelly Will has lived in the City of Tonawanda for nearly a year. She loves the neighborhood and the location of her apartment, but she and her neighbors are fed up with what they say are rowdy kids congregating at a nearby gas station late at night and into the early morning hours.

It’s a nuisance particularly for Will, who starts work at 7:30 a.m. and hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep at times because of the 20 to 30 teens who hang out outside the Sunoco A-Plus station at Delaware and Grove streets. It doesn’t happen every night, but often enough, neighbors say.

They’ve seen the kids leave the store with bottles and then break them in the street, urinate behind the building and hit a gas station employee with a squeegee. On top of that, they are loud and yell profanities.

“Neighbors have had problems sleeping,” Will said. “The police don’t do anything about it but slap them on the hands and let them go. It’s gotten to the point where I’m screaming from my front porch because the police aren’t doing anything.”

City Lt. Fredric Foels said records show that Will called police once in May and once in June to complain about kids congregating outside the gas station.

“Both times, officers responded and moved the group along,” Foels said, adding that the large part of the lot on the Grove Street side is a particularly attractive place for teens to congregate.

Foels said the only thing police can do is break up the group and tell the youths to watch their language, unless a Sunoco attendant calls police and the group refuses to comply. In that case, the youths could be charged. “Eighty percent of the time, the kids are good and will comply,” he said. A manager at the gas station declined to comment Wednesday.

A Grove Street resident, who lives across from the station but asked that her name not be published because her son is the same age as some of the kids who hang out there, said she too has called police a few times. “They can tend to get out of control,” she said. “Unfortunately, our world is turning rude and obnoxious, and it’s reflecting in our future generations.”

From the living room of his Grove Street home, Klaus Maurer has a direct view of the side area of the gas station where most of the kids gather. He has seen large groups of teens there and said they are sometimes loud. He’s seen kids urinate behind the building and smash bottles on the ground. But overall, Maurer said he’s not too bothered by the teens.

“I’ve gotten used to it,” said Maurer, who was recently elected to the Tonawanda School Board. “I’ve called police a few times if it’s gotten out of hand. They get a little loud. I’ve been woken up, but I just roll over and go back to sleep.”

Contact reporter David J. Hill at 693-1000, ext. 115.