Dear Editor:
There are drunken men who loiter all day and night at the Weehawken Tower Mall. They sleep under the telephones and in the area of the Post Office that’s left open at night. All of these men aren’t homeless, a lot of these men solicit Pathmark customers into taking them as taxi cabs. They drive their own vehicles and I’ve seen them drinking too, by the store fronts inside the mall. They hang on the garbage cans that line the mall walkway, they stand near the dentists offices, the Payless Shoe Store and the Tower entrance in the back by the laundry/dry clearner, and sit on the ledge of the liquor store. I shop in the daytime hours and early evening. They throw their uneaten food to the ground in the mall, spit, and I’ve heard from a Weehawken Police Officer that they urinate on the walls. One older man in particular blows his nose to the ground by holding one nostril, then is in the Pathmark Stores, Inc. touching all the food items, but not buying anything; he also stands right behind people who are using the coin change machine and checks it for money when they leave.
One so called taxi driver, walks the length of the check out line of the Pathmark watching everyone. One man asked me if I wanted a taxi and I was just walking in the store; he also sings to me and I get followed around a lot. My sister and cousin have also been bothered; these men say things you don’t care to hear. The manager of Pathmark said he throws these men out of the restrooms because they bathe in there. One Pathmark female employee told me these men use the ladies restrooms too.
I have been writing to the owner of Tower Mall Associates (Mark Lenner) and the CEO of the Pathmark Stores, Inc. (Jim Donald) and have spoken to the assistant to Jim Donald (Sophia) for several years, with no results. Sophia said to me, it’s not happening. My neighbors tell me they call the Pathmark Stores, Inc. CEO Jim Donald, and they haven’t seen results either. A lot of people shop elsewhere.
E. Kelly