Manalapan police issue warning to teens, parents, after hundreds of rowdy kids gather nightly at busy shopping plaza
“We tried confronting the kids a few times. They just look at you back like what are you going to do about it,” he said.
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Shop owners in Manalapan are fed up with hundreds of wild teens they say are harassing customers, causing havoc and speeding and racing through the parking lot.
It's happening almost every night starting around 8 p.m. at the EpiCentre Plaza on Route 9.
Police say these gatherings are not the organized pop-up parties. Instead, it's hundreds of local teens simply showing up to hang out later in the evening.
A video taken by Kevin Dolisi shows what the pizza store owner says are teens blocking his exit and putting gum all over the door handle.
“Burnouts all through here. Racing all through here. Harassing customers and all the businesses here,” said Dolisi, owner of Cucina Alessi Ristorante and Pizza.
The Brooklyn native set up shop here 25 years ago and says he's never seen anything like what's taken place nightly over the last few weeks.
“We tried confronting the kids a few times. They just look at you back like what are you going to do about it,” he said.
On Thursday, Manalapan police put the teens and their parents on blast, and in a statement to News 12, Chief Leonard Maltese says parents need to talk to their kids about their behavior.
“We will continue to take appropriate enforcement action when necessary for any violations of law or local ordinances, to include Conduct, Trespassing, and Loitering,” wrote Chief Maltese.
Dolisi says someone needs to be held responsible - if not the kids, it should fall on the parents.
“And the bad bunches of kids that are doing it, the good bunch should point them out, point out who they are, so the parents can know who it is that are doing this. For the police they should grab the kids that are doing it, they should bring them home to their parents and find those parents for not being responsible adults who know where your children are.”
According to store owners, Thursday night was much calmer than previous nights, but that was just hours after Manalapan police issued a warning on social media saying they would step up patrols in the parking lots of the EpiCentre Plaza.
