BRAZEN DEALERS BUTCHER BUSINESS

A SPRINGVALE family butcher in business for 32 years is being driven
out by brazen drug dealers.Father and daughter Svetislav and Nada
Radovanov say their customers are being scared off by rampant heroin
dealing outside their shop.

Yesterday they nailed up signs saying "No stopping for drugs" and "No
drug dealing beyond this point".

It is a final desperate attempt to save the Springvale Rd shop, run by
the family for three generations.

For months, dozens of dealers have gathered just metres from their
shop, Dunav Butchers, and run out to any cars that slow down, Ms
Radovanov said.

"Yesterday, four of them jumped on a car as it slowed down," she
said.

"They run out to the car, go to open windows and put their heads in
their windows.

"They ask again and again, 'Are you chasing? Are you chasing?' It's
every day and it scares our customers."

Other customers, with frightened young children, are harassed on the
footpath as they walk to the shop.

Ms Radovanov said that although some customers now chose to come on
Saturdays, when the dealing was not so prevalent, many had stopped
coming at all.

"If it gets any worse, we will have to move," she said.

"That's wrong.

"For 30 years my father has been working hard and because of them we
might have to go."

A crackdown on drug trading in central Springvale in February had moved
the problem on to their section of Springvale Rd, she said.

"Everyone knows what's going on," she said. "They shoot up outside our
shop."

Police were often called, but the dealers just disappeared for a while
and returned when the police had gone.

She said every authority she spoke to had said it was not its problem.

"Everyone I speak to says it's not up to them, that they can't do
anything," she said.

"We just want our customers to be left alone.

"I don't know if the signs will actually do anything. They (the
dealers) were laughing at it."

Another nearby shop, Sandown Air Conditioning, said while the problem
did not affect them as directly as the butcher's, it was difficult to
know how much potential trade they had lost.

"We rely on passing trade," said John Nievaart.

"They (the dealers) are rough-looking, quite coarse.

"It is very possible customers are scared off."

He said he could sympathise with the Radovanovs.

"They have been there for a long time and people come from miles
around because it's such a good butcher," he said.

Mr Nievaart said the drug problem was a difficult issue.

"No trader wants this, but if you send them away they are just going to
set up somewhere else," he said.

Police District Inspector for Greater Dandenong Ken Dainton said 27
people had been charged, with a total of 77 offences, in the area in
the past month under the anti-drug strategy Operation Belgrade.

"There are a lot of other issues involved," he said.

"This is not just a police problem, it is a community problem. Everyone
has to pull their weight."

He said the police would not have a problem with the signs on the
Radovanovs' shop because the messages did not break the law.