HOLLIS, N.H. (AP) – The police department has decided to scale back its online sting operations as it reacts to a recent surge in drug arrests.

Police Chief Richard Darling said he made the decision in December, a month in which Hollis patrolmen arrested three local teenagers for possessing marijuana with intent to sell.

Those arrests are part of an apparent spike in drug trafficking through Hollis, including 14 misdemeanor possession arrests since last July, police say.

Sgt. Richard Mello, a former Manchester police officer who once worked for a dot-com in New York, said he’s had hundreds of conversations with suspected pedophiles and predators since he started his online investigations in the fall of 2003. His work has led to 15 arrests. Five of those suspects have already been convicted in Hillsborough County Superior Court.

Mello asked the chief to let him prowl the Internet after the department began to receive phone calls from local parents with concerns about their children’s computer habits.

Some parents suspected their child was chatting online with an adult, Mello said.

“In this time and age when kids have access to the Internet, it’s hard without getting your hands dirty to know exactly what the threat is,” Mello said.

Darling said Mello is needed on the streets, not behind a computer.

“It became obvious that even though we’d like to do more, we just don’t have the manpower,” Darling said. “We need Rich in 1,000 other places.”

Darling said he regrets the investigations will halt for now, but the town’s drug problems are “an emergency that requires our immediate attention.”

Still, drug problems are cyclical, he said. Soon enough, he said, Mello will be chatting again.

“We’ve pulled in the reins a little bit; we’ve slowed it down,” Darling said. “We certainly have no intention of completely eliminating it. We have times of year when things are slower, and when that happens, we’ll get back into it, I think.”