NORWICH – For years the downtown Norwich community has been struggling with a surge of homelessness, open drug use, and landlords operating neglected properties.

Businesses told council members at a November meeting about the many challenges they’ve faced relating to loitering and homelessness. Complaints included people sleeping on streets or in their doorways, yelling at customers as they go into a shop or restaurant, urinating in alleyways, digging through garbage cans, smoking, and selling drugs, among other things.

After more than a year of attempting different methods of outreach and enforcement, a group of concerned community members, working closely with the Chamber of Commerce and the City of Norwich, are demanding the municipality take some kind of action.

In response city officials are considering new laws and tougher enforcement of the worst offenders.

At 6:30 p.m. the City of Norwich Common Council will hold a public hearing at One Court Plaza for a new proposed nuisance ordinance to address specific properties.

Other laws for loitering are still being considered.

Since taking over as Commerce Chenango President and CEO, Sal Testani has responded to concerns of local citizens and helped them organize and petition the city for help. For the past few months, business leaders have held regular meetings with officials asking critical questions and seeking viable solutions.

On Thursday, representatives from city court, codes, and police met to discuss the challenges they faced and the process of holding people accountable. Officials acknowledged they fined people for things like neglected garage and junk vehicles, but said making them actually clean it up was not always part of the law.

They said depending on the violation some of the codes don't allow for the city to come in and fix things, some of them do.

Testani asked, “We want the problem fixed, how do we find out these are being fixed?”

He noted that allegedly codes had handed out a number of citations over the years and many, he estimated hundreds of them, were later dismissed by code enforcement.

City code officials said they had issued hundreds of violations over the years, but Testani was quick to highlight that lack of visible improvements or prosecutions.

“So those got fixed? By definition those all got fixed, because they didn't go to court right? So somebody followed up on them and said no need to prosecute? Hundreds of them it would seem, it sounds like to me, got fixed. So, then I think we should be taking credit for that. Look at all the work we did to clean these places up.”

He added, “I don't know. I don't know how to get after that. There's a breakdown. Anyone think I'm wrong in that? We are writing hundreds of tickets, we are not getting the property fixed, you're not prosecuting them, or you're letting people go, so what's the breakdown?”

Business owners asked whose job it was to make sure things are getting fixed.

Norwich Fire Chief Jan Papelino, who oversees the codes department, said the department was in charge of following through.

He said people clean things up once and then just start repeating the violations. “So it's gone and then it's back,” he said.

Testani asked, “So then, how do we get at the repeat offenders?”

Papelino said the city cleaned up properties when they were able and sent the owners a bill. He recently said the city had cleaned the area around the Dollar Tree of litter and garbage after getting complaints, as an example. The city gives property owners three business days to take action.

He said if the property owner refuses to let the city clean the area up or pay the bill, they would then go to court.

Papelino said code enforcement almost always issues a warning first. “Says right on it, 'courtesy tag,'” he said.

Ideas included new suggestions for laws addressing loitering, taking property from delinquent landlords, and listing the top 20 worst offenders in Norwich and sharing more information about those offenders with the public.

Kozmo’s Hometown Eatery Owner Savannah Collins said a large portion of her day is spent dealing with individuals loitering outside her restaurant.

“About 15 percent of my day is taken up with dealing with the homelessness and the loitering outside of the restaurant and out on the street. It is impacting the businesses on North Broad Street,” she said.

Bernadette Giglio, owner of the downtown Norwich hair salon Cut Above for 40 years, said she has lost business as a result of loitering, as many of her clients are seniors and are afraid to come to the salon.

“I don’t want to be kicked out of my business or pushed away because we have been so consumed with our homeless,” said Giglio.

Patrick McNeil, owner of McNeil Jewelers, told council members if they’re going to create an ordinance to make sure it’s solid and worthwhile.

“What I really want to make sure is if the council is going to do something, make sure it’s got some real teeth in it, because if it doesn’t the police are going to be wasting their time shooing them away,” he said.

-Evening Sun Staff Writer Sarah Genter contributed to this story