BY LISA DONOVAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Put simply, the outdoor pay phones at the Bond Hill Quick-Stop are a nuisance.
Members of the community, the neighborhood cop, even the store manager think so.
Drug dealers and prostitutes find coin-operated phones a safe way to conduct business because the calls are nearly impossible to trace.
While the complaints have grown louder, the corner market's manager has been sluggish about having the phones removed from the store's parking lot at Reading Road and California Avenue. This week Councilman Dwight Tillery will urge council to begin the proceedings that he hopes will pull the plug on the bank of three pay phones -- and maybe let other communities in the same situation know they have somewhere to turn.
"That corner has been a very, very troubling corner and those phones are only contributing to that," said Mr. Tillery, who lives blocks from the intersection.
"This will be an important step to get rid of the undesirables in that area," Mr. Tillery said.
Police have made 15 arrests in that area since the beginning of the year, said Neighborhood Officer Ron Avant. Though he didn't have the previous year's arrest tally, he considers that number high.
"I've even locked up a few for dealing drugs," Officer Avant said.
The problems at that corner hurt the business district in Bond Hill -- "a nice, working-class neighborhood."
Both Mr. Tillery and Officer Avant said they had concerns about removing the phones, which sit on private property but are available to the public. After all, they are reliable in an emergency and, in some cases, the only phone near home.
Officials say that the better solution is to simply move the phones to another -- less busy -- location.
Because the phones are on private property, the city must determine they are a "public nuisance" to order them removed.
Store manager Mike Alqara said he has problems with loitering in his parking lot, but isn't sure the Cincinnati Bell pay phones are to blame.
"I don't have problems with the phones, but my customers and the neighbors, they complain," Mr. Alqara said.
He said he will eventually call the store owners in Columbus. The pay phones are a source of income for the store, which receives a cut of the monthly profits -- between $150 and $250, Mr. Alqara said.
