WANT FRIES WITH THAT CRACK?

Police Say Building's Back Window Served as a Drug Drive-up

SYRACUSE -- You can't get drink trays or extra packets of ketchup at 381
Cortland Ave.

What you can get, though, at this drive-up window was a buzz -- the kind
crack cocaine addicts crave -- after ringing the buzzer and placing an
order, police said.

Detectives heard for several weeks that people in the rear apartment of the
five-unit building had followed the fast-food concept and opened a drug
trade business through a back window. Customers simply could ring the
buzzer, place an order, and pick up their drugs.

"I've never heard of anything quite like this," Lt. John Corbett, a
detective working on the case, told The Post-Standard of Syracuse. "This is
the first full-service drug window I've ever seen."

The property has a long driveway that loops around the back of the house
where the window is. The buzzer was installed near the outside window sill,
Lt. Joe Cecile said.

Investigators spent several days watching the operation, then obtained a
search warrant and stormed the building in mid-March.

Nobody was home, but police did find more than two ounces of crack cocaine
with a street value of about $6,500, a digital scale, cellphones and dozens
of small plastic bags for packaging.

Metal bars had been installed on the drive-through window "to keep
dissatisfied customers from getting at the goods or the employees," Cecile
said.

The operation was the brainchild of Leroy Robinson, 24, of New York City,
and Rashidy Oliver and Kevin Adjer, both 16 and of Philadelphia. They were
arrested when they returned to the apartment later that day, Corbett said.