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Police raid part of ongoing Kerr Street enforcement By ANGELA BLACKBURN Oakville Beaver sum“ ' ‘ raided Tuesday night and beer was seized after the Halton police received several complaints about the business. ' Eight cases of beer were seized when police - three uniformed officers and one undercover officer - executed a search warrant around 6:30 pm. Tuesday at 137 Ken Street, a business known as the European Billiards. The business isn’t licensed to sell liquor, although it has made application for that right, said Halton Regional Police Sgt. Joe Prasad, head of the Oakville Crime Prevention Bureau. ‘ “We had complaints from people who said their husbands were coming home drunk and without their pay- cheques,” said Prasad Other complaints carne from neighboring businesses about intoxicated people leaving the premises, saidesad 1 Some of the complaints were direct- ed to local area councillors, said Prasad, and in response police launched a month-long investigation. One man was charged as a result of the raid Tuesday. Joe Da Silva, 56, of Robards Drive, Oakville is facing two counts of unlaw- fully selling liquor and one count of unlawfully keeping liquor for sale. The mid was one of numerous police enforcement efforts in the area of Kerr Street this summer. At the beginning of the summer, resi- dents began complaining about youths hanging around the stteet nearby anoth- er billiérds hall, the Blue Lagoon, which _____ I V the anilifil Big Bmthets of V Halton Emdtastic telemarketing campaign 1993. A ' dunkarmn ' Bmfis‘id’flmlmiormfiég Kerr Street billiard hall was is located north of Rebecca Street. The problem became so pronounced that Ward 2 town councillor Kathy Graham went to the August meeting of the Halton Regional Police Service board in an appeal for more police pro- tection. ' A report on police efforts is due back at the Sept. 23rd board meeting. “Early in the summer we started experiencing problems in one section of Kerr Street.‘The people who were affected by the problems were primarily senior citizens and they had complained to us that youth in the area were loiter- ing on the street and being boisterous and littering the place. People were afraid to.walk on Kerr Street because of the mere gathering of theseyouths," said Prasad and three of his officers spoke to the youths, explaining the complaints to police and wamed that if the situation didn’t change, police would lay charges. “The problem continued so we went ahead and laid charges,” said Prasad. To date 67 charges were laid includ- ing those for mischief, loitering, tres- passing, Highway Traffic Act offences, noise and a town by-law infraction of jostling the sidewalk Four arrests were also made for mischief. And the going hasn’t been easy for police officers assigned to Kerr Stljeet: “Because of our presence and what we were doing our cruisers were pelted with rocks while out there and we had rocks thrown through the windows of our community policing office at 348 Kerr Street,” said Prasad. He said the police would like to see parents and community leaders take a hand in what he calls a “socieml prob 1cm.” “We’re not social workers, we’m law enforcement officers and we’ll do what we have to do. If we have to lock them, then we’ll lock them up,” said Pmad. The problems with youths on Kerr Street has cleared up. Pmsad notes three contributing factors - the police zero tol- emnce, the onslaught of cooler weather and the resumption of school; _ “Next year we’ll be monitoring this early and deploy our officers as required,” said Prasad.