Has anyone else noticed that some of the fellows that hang around the 3rd World Lounge drug dealing seem to have rented the small office connected to the dollar store at 49th and Baltimore in order to conduct business lately?

Pretty crazy. i've heard of drug houses before but its the first time I have seen small time drug dealers apparently rent a commercial office space to do business out of. Weird.

I first noticed strange activity last week and last night when I swung by the party was in full swing in the office which has a side door facing 49th St of the building with the Dollar store on the corner facing Baltimore. I phoned it into the cops who were a little disbelieving but said they were dispatching someone to check it out.

If these guys were as inventive about running legitimate businesses they might actually end up doing something productive with their lives instead of doing time or getting popped by rival "street entrepeneur". Its kind of sad, actually.

Anyway if anyone happens to pass by 49th and Baltimore and see an odd party going on inside and out front of the little former medical office on the side of the dollar store - please call the cops immediately. If they hear from the neighborhood consistantly enough they will actually put some effort into shutting it down, not just running the dealers off for 1/2 and hour or so.

The address is 704 S. 49th if anyone is curious what I am talking about.

I was parked in front of there last weekend at about 4 on a Saturday and thought it was a music recording studio since everyone was hanging out. Are you absolutely sure that's what it is? It seems a bit too blatant...I noticed all the people since I had never seen people around that building. My other thought was that it was an AA facility

But I'll keep and eye out...please keep us posted!

Hello all, I had my brand new bike stolen last week (girl bike - purple and silver Schwinn) from behind my house. The bike was locked against one of the posts of my deck and snuggled behind my parked car. It must have been a premeditated act because I had parked in the same space for 4 months with my old bike with no problems. I live on 49th and Locust. What police station should I report this to? emigname@aol.com if you have any questions. Thank you! Emi

I imagine you're in the district that's located at 55th and Pine, but you just need to call 911 and they'll take a preliminary report on the phone, and probably send an officer out to take a full report. It may seem futile, but it's worth doing. For one thing, they could possibly find your bike. Or they could get reports that suggest an organized ring of bike thieves. Or the accumulation of data can help them figure out their patrol routes. Or your report could have no effect at all. But it's worth taking the time.

Also, call the bike shop at the Firehouse Market to see if they've come accross it.

It used to be a legit rehab place, actually, you are right, but it kept regular daytime hours then - not anymore. In the last two weeks its always a crowd out front and going in and out from when it gets dark till about 3 or 4 in the morning. The same guy with the really long dreads who I see most consistantly kind of watching the door as folks go in and out also sits on the stoops of the houses down the street between Pentridge and Florence and hangs out by the payphone by the Chinese takeout next to the 3rd World Lounge. He always looks and acts like he's dealing to me.

Have I ever approached him myself and asked him to sell me a dime bag or some rock - No - but you realy don't have to be a rocket scientist to see whats going on there. A clump of guys hanging out front at all hours, people drive up and go inside for 5 or 10 minutes and then leave. Sure doesn't sound like any AA meeting I have ever heard of.

Yes it really is that freaking obvious and it only started about two weeks ago. For the last 6 years that I have lived on that steet and walked past that place when it was a rehab office sometimes 2 or 3 times a day - its never had a clique of thugs hanging out front or kept such odd hours - till just now. I just stood on the corner of 49th and Forence describing what the main guys were wearing to 911 for like the second night this week. Its incredibly freaking obvious whats going on there.

No "recording studio" would ever have so much constant traffic going in and out because A. you couldn't get anything done and B. nobody who had actually invested the money in setting up a studio would be comfortable with so many strangers tromping in out of your place. It would be too easy for your gear to get stolen. Recording studios tend like to keep it low-key because you don't want some hood you don't know to come in and jack the thousands of dollars in recording gear you have typically just installed in the place. That just deosn't compute at all.

No those guys are doing exactly it really obviously seems like they are doing, even though they only do the exchange inside the door.

That is seriously jacked.

I've been trying to figure out what to do about the transactions that have been happening in Malcolm X Park that are so obvious, it hurts. A few of my neighbors noticed that there's a guy who drives up to the the park on 51st, people come up and talk to him as he has his product on the passenger seat. They hand him money through the window and then he drives off. It's been going on for about a month.

I saw it last week - he was driving one of those new Chryslers in a midnight blue color. About three people came up and bought from him. He was there for about five minutes before leaving.

I guess there's another guy who sells from one of the benches at like 6 am and has a huge line of people.

It's obvious that we should be reporting it - what's your solution? I've thought about mounting a web cam to record it since he drives off before the cops would come.

To be clear, if every drug transaction were totally discrete - if the trade never escalated into random acts of violence that sent bullets flying into children and innocent passersby or caused people to feel uncomfortable or threatened in their own neighborhood - if there was none of the heavy negative social spin off that innevitably with the illegal drug trade, I would say it really hangs on people individually what they do. I don't care, whatever.

Unfortunately all of those other negative effects - the violence, the intimidation, the wasted lives - always do come with the drugs and so it falls on neighbors to put the pressure on when traffic gets too blatant and too "regular".

A drug corner or scene that festers and goes on and on withut disruption becomes a target for a rival to want to come in and take over the profits and next thing you know guns are blazing.

For Malcom X Park I think the thing to do is the traditional organization among neighbors and/or TownWatch kind of thing. Harass the cops enough to make them swing by regularly and discourage the scene from getting to "established" and you might nip it in the bud. You don't have to do the impossible make people stop buying and selling drugs - just make it uncomfortable for that spot to be a steady constant thing. You just want them to vary their routine out of your immediate area so the trade doesn't get out of control.

The scene in 407 S. 49th is far more disturbing - because it is way too "established" right off the bat. I have been repeatedly calling in complaints with fairly detailed descriptions to the police and I encourage others to do so as well. Police have a lot on their plate so realistically they often dispatch the personal to deal with the squeakiest wheel in terms of constant community complaints. From my phone calls they say that the information is passed directly to narcotics. Some other folks are investigating the real estate end of things. Everytime I see the scene going down I call it in.

If I don't see a change in a reasonable amount of time, I am contemplating getting more creative with my complaints. From my experience and from what I have heard from others, Philadelphia is often dysfunctional on the indivual level of any particular agency. People at XYZ agency (the police, L&I, City Council, etc.) are often either overwhelmed or all too willing to ignore a problem if they think it only comes from one complaintant. If you have multiple complaintants and you bring the problem to the attention of different agencies, suddenly XYZ agency wants to cover their @ss and they get motivated real fast.

Example - friends of mine had a dangerous structure on their block. Most of the 2nd floor had collapsed into the first, the roof leaked, their was tanding water in the tructure and no workin plumbing. The family who owned the house allowed an adult retarded man to live in the house because noone wanted to be the bad guy who put the man into social services. Our councilperson's office did not want to be the one's who took away someone's home and was actively hostile to my friends call's about the place 2 or 3 times a week. They would try to get the place sealed by L&I and when the process started it would suddenly be called to a halt. The guy staying in the house was dumping his feces in public trashcans and his urine into the gutter and as the summer got hotter the unsanitary conditions grew more and more untolerable. They started getting creative and calling the state environmental office or having all the neighbors on the block call the cops at once when the guy was dumping his fetid urine in the street, they started to raise the profile of the problem. Suddenly when the councilperson's office (who actually taunted my friends) and L&I were fielding calls from all sorts of odd ball other agencies and cops were filing incident reports after coming out and being gagged by the smell - well all of a sudden a problem that had festered for apparently ~15 years got fixed in a hurry.

Its easy for city empolyees to ignore individual citizens but they seem to get off their butts when they realize their innaction is coming to the attention of mutliple agencies or likely to get press attention soon.

Obviously you want to give each agency a chance to work at its own glacial pace and not escalate unnecessarily too soon - but if you come to feel that something is "stuck" in City Hall or in the Police Dep't for odd reasons or simple bureaucracy - sometimes the best thing to do get it unstuck is to get multiple agencies aware of the problem.

On 407 S. 49th, I am going to keep calling it into 911 religiously who routinely transfer my complaint to Narcotics. If nothing happens over time and we hit barriers at the real estate level, well I am going maybe complain about the rampant prostitution going on at that address and make sure Vice knows Narcotics is droping the ball on that address - even if the trade really is primarily drugs. If months go by and nothing happens a little bird may anonymously call various other agencies (sniff, sniff I smell gas and there were some workmen doing middle of the night repairs at this address), each time trying to make sure that reports of the obvious exchanges going on gets in someone elses report. From the bad old days of the 80s I have heard stories from neighborhood people about pushing abandonned cars that the city would not tow for eons out into the middle of the street in order to get the city to actually tow them, for example.

Its a little manipulative and obviously should be used only sparingly. In fact it really works most effectively when the problem is really, really obvious and egregious to the point that the shame factor for whoever is not doing their job is really high. However it is an idea for what to try if you have given something months and months and no progress has been made.

At least that's what I am thinking right now.

Again it might be simpler if everybody who reads this decides right now to call it in everytime they see the problem as a first step before resorting to more devious tactics.

Having friends in NYC who lived there during the 70s and 80s and 90s....a "drug dealing" space in a office or store front is NOT that unusual....

Friend rented a place that was originally used for that type of "business". Lots of armored doors everywhere... Took a while to get the place clean up for his business (dentist).