SABATTUS – Kids.

A pack of approximately 10 to 12 teenagers have been hounding customers at the Main Street Market on the corner of High Street and Main Street in the town’s village. They ask for money. They try to bum cigarettes. They use foul language while doing it. They steal milk after the milkman has set it down. They do not think twice about knocking on car windows.

These complaints and more were brought up during the discussion of an agenda item on this week’s Board of Selectmen’s meeting..

A local businesswoman described a recent incident to the board. A 15-year old male asked a fiftysomething-year-old woman if she would have sex with him, said Main Street Market owner Brenda Hutchings. The woman “couldn’t even talk she was so upset,” Hutchings said.

The kids are bad for business. “They are scaring customers off,” Hutchings said, adding that the problem has been going on for months. Police come and move the kids along, but as soon as police go the kids reappear, she said.

“This is such a problem,” Hutchings said, adding that some of her customers are telling her: “We’re not going to come here anymore.” The crowd of mostly juveniles ranging in age from 14 to 19 include “a lot of punks,” she said.

Police Lt. Carl Foster fielded concerns from a crowd of approximately 15 residents packing town hall at a recent selectmen’s meeting. He said that of the approximately 2,281 complaints police have responded to since May, 18 of them have come from the Main Street Market area.

Residents complained that police have not been patrolling the village area enough. Foster said that on any given day, Sabattus police have one officer working days and one officer working nights.

“Right now these guys are buried (with work),” he said, adding that Sabattus only has five full-time officers in addition to the chief of police. The approximately 2,000 complaints police responded to in 1990 have spiked to 8,000 to 9,000 complaints per year now, and police only have one more officer, Foster said.

Foster said that other complaints such as domestic assaults or burglaries do take precedence over loitering calls. But Hutchings said that some officers who respond to her calls sometimes do not move the kids along, and that those officers have at times given her an attitude.

“They’ve got no business (giving) you an attitude,” Foster said. “I’ve gotten it (sometimes),” Hutchings replied. Laws regarding juveniles makes it hard for officers to get juveniles off the street.

Of the juveniles, Foster said: “We really can’t touch them, and they know it. Unless they murder somebody, we’re not going to get an arrest.”

In past years, Foster said, police could haul a poorly acting juvenile down to the station. But that is no longer the case due to a change in laws, he said. Selectmen Chairman William Luce asked if the childrens’ parents know where their kids are.

“Some do,” Foster said. “Some don’t care.” And, he said, some say they have simply lost control of their child.

“Somebody is going to get hurt,” said John Begin, who lives on High Street. Others agreed. Residents said all the cars parked near the store by kids coupled with the skateboarding going on in and around the cars could surprise oncoming motorists. Kids darting in and out of the cars is a recipe for disaster, they said.

“These are not all bad kids,” Foster said, adding that some of them just lack guidance. Residents agreed.

Foster encouraged the residents to call when the kids cause trouble. He also told the residents not to take the situation into their own hands. Otherwise, Foster said, the kids will probably have vanished by the time police get there.

Police will increase patrols in the village, said Luce, the chairman of the selectmen. “We’ll give you the best response we can give you,” Foster said.