While police are fielding increased complaints of teens and young adults hanging around the Safeway parking lot in downtown Grass Valley, the loiterers say they have nowhere else to go.

Several times every week, police get reports of teenagers skateboarding, doing drugs and annoying people in front of businesses in the Neal Street shopping center.

"Sometimes it make me uncomfortable," said a Safeway customer Monday who did not want to be identified because she has two high school-aged daughters. "You feel like if you look at (loiterers) wrong, you don't know what they'll do."

Area merchants say they are tired of their potential customers getting scared away.

"We have to walk outside and ask them to move," said Quiznos Sub employee Caitlan Murphy, 20. "It gets really irritating if they don't move, then say something nasty to you."

She said a group of teens -usually ditching school - stands near the restaurant every day, smoking and sometimes taunting passersby.

"We have the typical teenage kids hanging out late at night in front of the store," said Cold Stone Creamery employee Lacy Bruning, 17. "They skateboard, sit and talk and smoke. Sometimes they'll talk loud inside the store, and then we have to kick them out."

She said the store's elderly clientele are often made to feel uncomfortable by the behavior.

Safeway employees refused to comment on the problem and referred all questions to the grocer's Northern California public affairs representative Jennifer Webber. Webber did not return calls Monday.

Police say have stepped up patrol in the area in recent weeks and are periodically handing out citations to the loiterers.

"We are getting more calls for service because of loiterers and drug activity," Grass Valley Police Sgt. Jason Perry said Monday. "It depends on the circumstances, but people are told to leave or they are cited."

He encourages merchants to continue to call police to report illegal activity.

But several young adults sitting at a picnic table at adjacent Elizabeth Daniels Park Monday said they come from bad home lives, are bored and feel harassed by the police.

"They've (officers) already told us to move twice today," said a 22-year-old Grass Valley resident who called himself "Spicoli," a reference to a character in the movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." "Look. There's one right now."

A Grass Valley police officer drove slowly through the parking lot.

"(Police) tell us to go to Nevada City or to Auburn," said Andre Boling, 20. "But how do they expect us to get to Auburn?"

He said he and his friends don't have cars, so they walk everywhere. They don't have enough money, he said, so when they aren't working or going to school, they hang out in public places where payment is not required.

"There is nothing to do in this town," Boling said. "We need a teen center. A nickel arcade. A dance club for teens or a skating rink."

Many teens have parents with drug problems, Spicoli said, and they would rather sit around with their friends in a parking lot after school than go home.

Willow Williamson, assistant manager of the Flour Garden Bakery, said she could sympathize with the juveniles, although their behavior continues to distress employees and customers.

"They're out there every day," she said. "Some are great kids; some are bad."

She said she was also bored when she was a local high school student.

"There was nothing to do after school," she said. "There is stuff to do if you have money, but these kids don't. A lot of them don't have very good home situations."

She said the city should invest in more free activities for juveniles, and then perhaps the loitering problem would decline.

"There needs to be a teen center," she said. "It's expensive, but we need it."



To contact Staff Writer Robyn Moormeister, e-mail robynm@theunion.com or call 477-4236.