Jim and Jan (not their real names) stare with disdain at the two pay phones in front of their Fremont Street office. "You just missed a big deal this morning," Jim says. "Guy out there selling rocks, about 10 people lined up."
He's talking about crack and blames the pay phones for bringing the crack users and dealers close to their Downtown business. Since one of the phones costs only 10 cents to use and the other costs 25 cents, they tend to draw a crowd, but not the kind that Jim and Jan would like patronizing their establishment. The couple laughs cynically, remembering a couple of years ago when a drug deal went bad: A woman was bludgeoned with a baseball bat and left in a pool of her own blood next to the phone.
"Blood everywhere," the two remember. "Had to pour peroxide to dissolve the blood."
The phones initially seemed a good way to make money. But now, about halfway through a five-year contract, they'll bring in maybe $20 a month and attract people that the two business owners don't want in front of their store. So they tried to cancel their contract, and that didn't work. They cut off power to the phones, and surrounded them with tape rendering them useless. That landed them in small-claims court with the company that owns the phones, which demanded that they honor their contract. Now they're back in service and, according to the business owners, are constantly used in drug deals; they're urinated on, sprayed with graffiti and have made their lives more difficult.
"They couldn't pay me enough when the contract's out to keep those phones there," says Jan. "There's no way."
Until then, all they can do is sit and watch.
"[The police] can only do so much. What are they going to do? Send them to jail, and they'll be on the street the next day," Jim says. "If you could figure out how to get these phones out of here for us, that'd sure be sweet."
It's not so much the service that the phones offer that area business owners and the police say contribute to the problem. "Dope dealers hang out on Fremont Street, they hang out by the pay phones," says Lieutenant Karen Hughes of Downtown Area Command. She says that in the past the police have declared pay phones in high drug-trafficking areas nuisances and gotten rid of the phones, and that, she says, has been very successful. So far, three Fremont Street pay phones have been declared nuisances. But whether or not they'll get rid of them has yet to be determined. There are, of course, many people who have a legitimate need for the pay phones. Plus, there's the business end of the spectrum. "I'm sure phone companies are reluctant to remove well-working phones that provide them with money," says Hughes.
Sgt. Eric Fricker has spent hours and hours in surveillance, studying the pay phones and their patrons. "It's not the phone call," he says. "The phone is a prop itself." It's something they can easily pick up when a cop car cruises by. They're also a place to store drugs and offer some shelter from passersby.
Fricker tells stories of frustrated business owners chasing after pay phone malingerers, waving canes in the air. They're fed up and awaiting a solution. But until regulations are established, there's not much that can be done. The police are forming a task force in hopes of cracking down on the problem, perhaps impose some kind of regulation. They've talked to area business owners about moving the phones inside, but most are reluctant to do so. They've told police that the phones are used by drug dealers, and they don't want drug dealers in their stores.
"If it's not regulated, it becomes a tool for the criminals," Fricker says. Jim and Jan would agree that it already has. They watch four or five drug deals go down each day and don't see any other real use for the phones.
"It's all they're good for," says Jan. "Normal people don't come and use the phones."