National "Night Out"... what say you?

[Allyssa]

National Night Out Fundamental or Farce?

Is National Night Out an excuse for an entire neighborhood to have a street party once a year in honor of crime prevention?

Or should National Night Out be single households looking out for their community every night without all the fan-fair in honor of crime prevention?

Is sitting out on your porch with the light on more benificial serveral times a week or just a "celebrated" day once a year?

What say you?

[WNYresident]

Just keep your eyes peeled.

What would happen if we made a page so people could anonomously turn in crack houses? Let them drive by if they know of a vancant house being used by druggies. Perhaps if the police knew which houses were dope dealers they wouldn't have to look for them.

[Grumpy]

You must be smoking crack if you think that would work :)

There was an article in the newspaper several weeks back about a guy on 10th street that bought a house ten years ago and did all the work himself to fix it up. Now he has a nice house, but there are crack houses down the block. He keeps reporting them to the cops, and the crack dealers throw molatov cocktails through his window at night and try to burn him out. His car gets vandalized, windows broken, etc.

The cops haven't run any of them out, and they must be telling the dealers who is complaining. The story said that some cop said that if they run the crack dealers out of that neighborhood, they'll just move somewhere else and set up shop.

Just what the hell do cops do to actually earn their paychecks? It sure isn't fighting crime. I know all that money they pump back into the economy at Tim Hortons, Dunkin Donuts, Dickies Donuts, Donuts & Cream, Clarence Country Donuts , and the now defunct Donut World and Bakerman Donuts must help the respective communities a little bit, but you could hardly call that a job requirement.

[Allyssa]

Grumpy,
what are your takes on "National Night Out" in general?

[Grumpy]

NNO sounds like a huge waste of time and effort. Being watchful one night per year won't do much good.

When I was a kid, everyone on our block owned and lived in their house. You saw the same people every day for years, all the adults were friendly with each other and you would always see people talking with their neighbors.

Now there are too many people renting houses in the old neighborhood, people are constantly moving in and out, and as the old people die out you have transient families moving in and out all the time. Nobody knows anyone else and doesn't care to.

I would think that if people really cared about what was going on around them, they wouldn't bother with something like NNO but form a block club and organize a neighborhood watch or something similar.

[WNYresident]

Originally posted by Grumpy
[B]You must be smoking crack if you think that would work :)

There was an article in the newspaper several weeks back about a guy on 10th street that bought a house ten years ago and did all the work himself to fix it up. Now he has a nice house, but there are crack houses down the block. He keeps reporting them to the cops, and the crack dealers throw molatov cocktails through his window at night and try to burn him out. His car gets vandalized, windows broken, etc.[B]

People must understand there will be sacrafices made inorder to clean up WNY. It will not be easy to get WNY back on track again. The elected leaders than have been in office for years that caused a lot of the issues are going to hold on to thier "cut" just as hard as drug dealers want to hold thier turf.

If the hole comunity sticks togeather things can change. If the whole nieghborhood pointed out the crack house not just one person on the street they couldn't zero in on the one.

[WNYresident]

We group up all the block groups into one group. You have each block group learn from one another on what works and what doesn't. YOu then have a large group capable of voting in numbers and cleaning up issues each community has.

Strength in numbers, look what is has done for the lifer politicians and unions in the area. We just happened to get a little unbalanced in WNY.

[Allyssa]

a little story to share.

when I lived on the East Side of Buffalo, someone began a neighborhood community watch on my street... it was great, and ran successfully for many years! The parents and even the kids on the block all watched out each other until the unthinkable happened...

Before long, our little block club expanded into three blocks; all interacting on the same level. The local political leaders (from that time) decided to check out how things were being run in our community by attending a few of the meetings and when the mayor (at that time) came to commend the good-hearted citzens of these streets for all they were doing, the politicians took all of the credit. And in no time at all, our little community block club that the residents took such pride in was reduced to nothing more than a political billboard of broken promises.

yes, Strength is in numbers...
but from an expeirence of the past... Anybody interested in forming block clubs, good rule of thumb... don't interact with the politcians to solve community problems and take credit while the residents do all of the work.

[Unregistered]

Someone should be throwing molitavs through the windows of the crack dealers, obviously the system does not work. Go out of state and get a sidearm, and if you see the crackheads about to toss a molataz through your window shoot em deader n dogpoop.

If the system won't protect you and what's right, it seems pretty wimpy to sit and cower....fight fire with fire literally.

[Grumpy]

a sidearm isn't the right choice here, a remington 1100 is. go for the 20" barrel with rifle sights, an improved cylinder choke, and a combination of #4 and 00 buck tactical loads.