Petrol-pump owner could win "ridiculous claims" prize

[Saddle Bronc 124]

TCPalm

Martin County gas station owner: Police driving customers away

By staff report

February 23, 2007

GOLDEN GATE — Most businesses welcome a law enforcement presence nearby, but Jamal Uddin asked deputies from the Martin County Sheriff's Office not to come by in the mornings when immigrant workers hang out at his Texaco gas station waiting for possible day jobs.

Day laborers hanging out at the gas station sometimes get drunk if they don't find a job and commit other crimes, said Sgt. Ryan Grimsdale with the Martin County Sheriff's Office Community Policing Unit.

Still, Uddin asked the Martin County Sheriff's Office Community Policing Deputy John Perez, who makes daily patrols, to stop coming by the store on Dixie Highway before 9 a.m. when most customers frequent the gas station.

"It's the regular customers I'm losing. Normally, everybody is scared of police," Uddin said. "I felt business was getting a little bit down with the police coming by and customers thinking it's a robbery."

Deputies and the pastors of the nearby Iglesia Bautista church have encouraged the day laborers to wait for jobs in the church's parking lot because it is safer and in a less residential area. The number of men hanging out at the station had decreased from 30 or 40 to five or 10.

After Uddin's request, deputies tried to form a partnership where Uddin would try to keep things under control, while Perez would still keep an eye on the business. But the number of immigrants hanging around has now increased back to 20 to 40 each morning.

Community members have been calling in complaints about the laborers loitering, cutting through yards and more.

"We don't want to harm his business, but we don't feel their opportunity to make money should harm other citizens," Grimsdale said.

Tom McKenna, the owner of Seacoast Water, a water softening company next to the gas station, doesn't want the laborers hanging around each morning.

"Every time we have customers come in a SUV or truck, they get swarmed on by immigrants from across the street. I feel bad for them but ..." McKenna said.

Despite warnings from deputies, Mexican immigrant Vicente Sanchez continues to go the station daily to wait for jobs,.

"The cops come by two to three times a day in the morning," Sanchez said. "The last time he told us we can't go to work, and we can't stay here."

But even after deputies visit, the laborers come back.

"From the beginning we (signed a lot of trespassing notices) and what happened? They get taken to jail when I called, and two days later they come back. It makes me tired," Uddin said.

Uddin said he doesn't make the calls anymore, and there is no way to differentiate the normal customers from the loiterers.

All he is trying to do is stay afloat as a business owner, he said.

"Why are they coming here? They're living here," Uddin said, pointing to the Golden Gate community behind his store. "What can I do? I don't like it either. Still, they're hanging out and not getting jobs. They're slowly, slowly leaving. I feel they're going to go away anyway."

Actually, it appears to be rather easy. "Ordinary" customers at petrol-pump stores buy, pay and go (most of them would be driving, and filling up with petrol--easily a $30 purchase, likely on plastic), where the loiterer will stick around and NOT necessarily buy very much (and the loiterer can actually be a drive-off if the petrol-pump is located near offices, which could provide a much better customer base).

Jamal Uddin here is a CF!

[Ban Hammer 14,441]

Jamal Uddin here is a CF!

agreed. he's another enabler.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

He should give the loiterers snacks. It's the humane thing to do. In fact, they should pass a law making it mandatory.

[peejay 327]

These illegal day laborers are so obnoxious that I have personally seen them run across 3 lanes of traffic to jump into the back of a pickup truck to beat their amigos for a day job. They hang out prominently in several places on busy streets here in Houston. So where is ICE?

Cops regularly roust street prostitutes selling their wares on the street. Why not do the same to illegal aliens? Is it any different?