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BY JOSH FEIT
jfeit@wweek.com
Photos: MARC CARLETON
Laura is an unlikely poster child for the perceived crime wave on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. A rag-doll panhandler who looks like a lost Manson family teen-ager, Laura was a daily fixture at the corner of Hawthorne and Southeast 38th Avenue this winter. From her perch outside the Bank of America, she'd flash a melancholy smile and sad bright eyes, asking strangers for money. Panhandling is nothing new in the bustling Hawthorne District. Nonetheless, Laura, 23 going on 40, has unnerved local merchants. Store owners like Greg Klaus, owner of Greg's at 3737 SE Hawthorne Blvd., say Laura is part of a new wave of panhandlers that has brought heroin and crime to a street that is better known for handmade fettuccine and poetry readings. Concerns peaked last month after a homeless man died of a heroin overdose in the bathroom of Starbucks. According to a police report, 46-year-old John Ellis Whitefoot disappeared into the coffeeshop's bathroom at approximately 4:45 pm on March 2. Fifteen minutes later Starbucks staffers found him dead, a needle and cook lid resting on the toilet. For business owners on the busy shopping strip, the death wasn't so much a wake-up call as the confirmation of a creeping feeling that all is not groovy. In November, employees at Oasis Pizza were forced to lie on the floor at gunpoint during a drug-related robbery. Today rumors of two heroin deaths at the Daily Grind health-food store are making the rounds of Hawthorne-area shopkeepers (police deny the deaths). This is all very new for a neighborhood where crime is generally relegated to the mystery section of the local Powell's. Last week a group of Hawthorne shopkeepers met to discuss beefing up private security. On March 28 they started selling $2 coupons for meals at the Sisters of the Road Cafe--a low-cost eatery catering to the homeless--which customers can purchase and give to panhandlers instead of money. In addition, merchants say, they've contacted the police. Merchants say that last week, two new bicycle officers arrived and have been more active about discouraging aggressive panhandling. Police say the new officers are part of a routine spring patrol. "The panhandling has become intense in the last two to three months," says Daniel McDermott, co-owner of Sorel Vintages Ltd. at 3713 SE Hawthorne Blvd. "It was like someone put word out on the Internet that Hawthorne is a good place to panhandle." Julien Sorel, McDermott's business partner, says the store has experienced a recent "mass of undesirables" and an "increase in shoplifting." He says he has taken to watching people who come into the store--"checking pupils." Merchants say they've witnessed Laura doing drug deals on Hawthorne. "One day I saw the gal get in a nice car with guys in business suits and then get out one block later," says Klaus. "What's not right about that picture?" Laura says she's not dealing drugs. She says she and her boyfriend, Andrew Phillips, lost their jobs as janitors at OMSI several months ago and have been living on the street ever since. Officer John Kuechler of the neighborhood response team says the perception of drug dealing on Hawthorne is greater than the reality. He says Phillips has been arrested once for possession of a small amount of cocaine, but the couple is not dealing. "If you're out there panhandling, you're not dealing heroin," Kuechler says. Laura says the shopkeepers' accusations of drug dealing are just an excuse to get rid of her. If so, they've succeeded. Last week, she and Andrew set up shop in downtown Portland. --Ruth Rowland contributed to this report. |
