Center of disinformation

Can a local agency that helps troubled youth escape the stigma of crime and gangs?

by Chris Kanaracus

The May 28 Telegram & Gazette flashed some grim news for the Worcester Youth Center. Two years at their Chandler Street location, the newspaper reported, the center's staff were in crisis mode and close to packing their bags. This time, though, it was because their neighbors were threatening the very thing the center sets out to do: provide a safe haven for troubled youth. In a front-page account, the T&G detailed ongoing problems with the next-door bar, the Chandler Street Tavern, decrying it as such a scourge, the center might have to bail from its increasingly successful operation. For sure, a serious setback for the non-profit organization that received its share of criticism in 1994 when, in its former Main Street home, neighboring businesses argued it was driving customers away. At one point, police raided the center and maced and arrested three staffers. And during a search for a new building, talks between the city and center organizers grew so heated, a federal mediator was called in. Eventually, in late 1997, businessman William O'Connor offered the group the 7000-square-foot Chandler Street site.

That the center could leave again was hard to believe, considering the area is already marked for a heavy-duty rehabilitation campaign (i.e., the proposed arts district).

As it turns out, the T&G overstated the urgency of the situation. For not only is the center thriving, but also it wants to expand the programs offered. And it's not moving.

Which is exactly what you'd expect when you look at its explosive growth in the past two years. Today, a program that once operated on a hand-to-mouth basis (board members would pass the hat for rent money when they were on Main Street) boasts a roster of well-heeled sponsors -- BankBoston/Fleet and UMass Memorial Medical Center, to name two -- which, along with longtime backers, has boosted the center's annual budget to $300,000. One hundred kids stop in daily, up from 50 in the past. GED classes are held on site by the school department. There are computer courses funded by a $10,000 city grant. Existing programs like peer leadership and all-ages dances continue to flourish. And with a Worcester Foundation grant, a consultant has begun work on a comprehensive vision plan there. Perhaps the best evidence of the center's progress was at the June 7 seven-year anniversary celebration: more than 100 supporters packed the building.

Though the Youth Center has established itself as a valued, independent provider of youth services, it has yet to satisfy all its critics. And the neighbor-to-neighbor feuding that marred its stay on Main Street hasn't gone away. If there's one thing left to perfect, it's an image, and there's much to suggest such a task won't be easy.

The center's continued difficulties were crystallized on March 27, when, after a period of videotaped surveillance, police swooped down on the sidewalk shared with the Chandler Street Tavern and came away with 16 drug-related arrests. Eight of the men, including two juveniles, were known to Youth Center executive director Adolfo Arrastia.

Despite the arrests, the center continues to serve those who may not be welcome or comfortable in more traditional youth programs. The policy is not without some guidelines: gang colors are banned within the facility, for instance. But, as center staff admit, some visitors retain ties to such groups as the Latin Kings.

The center's refusal to prohibit gang members from participating in activities there may have prompted local police to remove officer Bill Gardiner from the executive board. Officially, says Worcester police Sgt. Donald Cummings, the officer was removed shortly before the planned, late-March raid "to avoid a conflict of interest." It is possible, Cummings adds, an officer will return to the board in the future.

The center's open-door policy continues to rankle two of its most vocal critics, William Breault and Barbara Haller, of the Advisory Committee on Beacon/Brightly (Breault also chairs the Main South Alliance for Public Safety). "Their principles are wonderful. Their results have been deplorable," says Breault, who with Haller made his opinion known at a May 2 meeting with a number of city crime-watch groups and Police Chief Ed Gardella. "Their mantra when they moved in [to Chandler Street] was they were going to make the neighborhood better. That hasn't happened," Haller says.

Other crime-watch groups don't share Breault and Haller's view. And Mary Keefe of the Crown Hill Association, the dominant activist group in the area, recently joined the center's board. But while Breault and Haller stand nearly alone in criticizing the Youth Center, they are vocal -- enough so for their comments to make the lead of a May 3 T&G story on the crime-watch meeting.

But a few negative newspaper articles -- while not a plus -- probably won't sink the center. What could, however, is an escalation of its current feud with neighbors.

The shots fired from the Youth Center's side have been stinging. According to board member Doug Cutler, bar patrons frequently urinate at the front door, shoot up in the alley behind the building, and have had physical and verbal altercations with center visitors. Arrastia goes as far to say he believes prostitutes operate out of the tavern. "I don't think the bar contributes to this area. Until we can fix up this area and beautify it, we're going to have this problem."

Arrastia speculates the bar could someday be purchased and converted into a day-care center. But is running the tavern out of town the only answer? For sure, it's not the place you'd go on your anniversary; a battered sign tacked to the front door bears the following declaration: NO INFANTS. NO DRUGS. NO FIGHTING. Yet it's hard not to notice the parallels between the center's gripes with what happened to the center on Main Street.

Arrastia, when pressed on the topic, backs off a little. He says the tavern's owner, John Sanderski, is an "honorable, completely easy-going guy," and Sanderski met with Youth Center officials on two occasions to discuss the problems. Apparently the talks were ineffective.

But the staff's accusations, while receiving a good deal of play in the newspaper (the May 28 T&G article did not quote Sanderski), haven't impressed certain, key officials. Worcester License Commission chairman Jordan Levy says, "The Youth Center folks say most of their troubles are coming from the bar next door. Well, our investigation doesn't say that at all. Are there unsavory characters coming out of there? Yes. . . . But this is an inner-city bar. The Youth Center chose to locate itself next to a bar. We've had no complaints from anyone [about the tavern] except them."

And, it seems, the bar's owner may not be the absentee bad-guy you'd expect. According to the license commission, during the four years Sanderski has owned the business, only one punishment was levied against the tavern: a three-day suspension of its liquor license in 1999 for serving to minors.

Sanderski, for his part, says he hires an off-duty police officer for security on Friday and Saturday evenings. In addition, he says, he has installed a six-camera security system and works closely with the Worcester police. "We're not the problem. We have had our own set of issues, but for [Arrastia] to say I'm the problem, that's just wrong. The bar has been there for 40 years. They just got there, and they say the problems are all around them."

But woes persist. According to police Sgt. Cummings, two men were arrested inside the bar on May 31 and charged with distributing cocaine.

Still the center could take steps to avoid trouble with the tavern. Take the frequent spillover of youth from the center onto the street, which was the basis of a majority of complaints by neighbors on Main Street. One recent night, nearly 40 kids milled about on the sidewalk -- not exactly the way to avoid potential confrontations.

The loitering may have led one property owner to vacate the premises. Steve Schneider recently sold the 44-unit Vendone & Ives apartment complex located next door. Though he insists his reasons for selling were numerous, Schneider adds "the Youth Center had a negative influence. There was a problem with kids hanging around outside." According to Schneider, Youth Center officials promised loitering wouldn't be a problem during talks prior to the move to Chandler Street.

But the Vendone & Ives complex has never been mistaken for the Ritz-Carlton. "Yes, the buildings [were] difficult to manage. [They are] not without sin. But it's just that the problem has been ten-fold since the Youth Center moved in," says Schneider.

Such accusations will likely dog the center in the future. After all, it serves youths at risk and as such doesn't enjoy the squeaky-clean image of programs like the YMCA, Girls Inc., and the Boys Club. Perhaps you can't fault organizers for what could be a slight bunker mentality: for to characterize the center's rise to stability as tooth-and-nail would be a bit of an understatement.

But diplomacy will certainly need to play a role as well, especially if it hopes to take over the block. Staff members say they're ready to oblige. "We just want to be good neighbors. We're just going to have to work together. We can't go around bitching at each other," Arrastia says.

Yet just seconds later, he adds: "There's no question that this bar needs to go."

Chris Kanaracus can be reached at ckanaracus[a]phx.com.