SHOP OWNER PUTS DRUG DEALERS ON HOLD

Pay phones removed at Old Southwest store Shop owner puts drug dealers on hold

Dealers use the phones to take calls from customers and to call colleagues
who deliver the crack cocaine for the buyers.

Drug dealers and their customers were forced to take their curbside
business elsewhere recently when an Old Southwest Roanoke store owner,
neighbors, police and the phone company banded together to remove pay
telephones from a busy intersection.

Dipen Shah, 29, owner of Sparky's Food Store at Elm Avenue and Fifth
Street, agreed to have the two pay phones removed last month at the request
of police and some nearby residents, and Bell Atlantic agreed to charge
Shah a lower-than-normal penalty for early withdrawal from a three-year
contract to keep the phones in place.

Shah, who also forfeits the $200 monthly income he received from the
phones, said it was a smart long-term business decision.

"If that's what the police and [nearby residents] wanted, then I want to be
a good neighbor," he said.

Drug dealers' use of pay phones is a nationwide problem in many urban and
some suburban areas, Bell Atlantic spokesman Jim Smith said.

Some crack cocaine dealers use the phones to take calls from customers and
call colleagues who wait nearby to deliver a small amount of crack just
before the customer drives up. That way, the dealers avoid being caught by
police with a large amount of their product.

If pay phones are blocked from receiving calls, the dealers still may use
them for outgoing calls while receiving calls from their colleagues over
cellular phones.

The two pay phones were at Elm and Fifth for several years before Shah
bought the convenience store in January 1997. Shah, who emigrated from
India 10 years ago and now owns three Sparky's and leases two more in the
Roanoke area, said the phones were profitable but a nuisance.

Shady characters often used them and loitered around the store, which was
bad for the family atmosphere he said he tries to foster.

"When the phones were there, they had a reason to hang around," he said.
"Now they don't. I told police if that would solve the problem, I'd do it."

After several months of negotiations, Bell Atlantic lowered its penalty for
letting him out of the contract from $1,000 to $200, Shah said.

Although the phones could have been moved inside the store or placed just
outside the front doors, Shah said he did not want to take the chance that
his customers would be exposed to "loud arguments and cursing."

"You know, the men curse at their girlfriends and argue with their friends
on the phones," he said.

Removing pay phones from public places requires a consideration of
community needs, Smith said. While getting rid of the phones hurts drug
dealers, it also may hurt nearby residents who cannot afford phones in
their homes, he said.

"We always sit down with police and civic leagues and examine how we can
balance the interests of police and the community and the people who need
to use phones for legitimate reasons," Smith said.

Smith called Shah a "socially responsible" store owner for sacrificing
profits to help his neighborhood.

Some Old Southwest residents were pleased when the phones were removed.

"The neighborhood is proud of him," said Joel Richert, a member of the Old
Southwest Inc. civic league. "Even though it cuts his income, he's done the
right thing."

Other residents were displeased.

"A lot of people around here don't have the money to have a phone in their
house, so they used those phones every day," Peggy Duncan said. "Now they
have to walk" a block in either direction to other pay phones along Fifth
Street. "We need more phones, not less."

Roanoke Police Sgt. Rick Arrington said the pay phones at Sparky's were a
drug dealer's ideal "remote office": They were at a busy intersection with
good lighting and a parking lot with easy access.

Arrington said drug dealers' use of pay phones is not a widespread problem
in Roanoke, but that there are a few trouble spots. Police increase patrols
and undercover operations at those sites but cannot monitor them
constantly, he said. Some store owners cooperate by removing the phones,
but others do not because of the steady income the phones provide, he said.

John D.