Birmingham still calm

By Jeremy Carroll and Mary Beth Almond
C & G Staff Writers

ROYAL OAK — The Dream Cruise might be a little more than a month away, but cruisers have already been frequenting Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak in large numbers, often being told to move along by police.

Deputy Police Chief Chris Jahnke said cruisers usually get out early, but this year the department started receiving complaints from residents about noise, and businesses about people loitering, starting in April.

“It’s been getting earlier and earlier every year,” he said.

He said the department has ticketed several drivers for reckless driving, for doing burnouts and drag racing, and police logs show the department tells scores of loiterers to move along every week.

“Businesses are asking (us) to respond and we are doing what we can with the limited resources that we have,” Jahnke said.

When cruisers loiter in business parking lots, they can take up valuable parking spots, he said.

“With the economy how it is, it can have a big impact,” he said.

The area with the highest concentration of cruisers is the Normandy Road and Woodward Avenue area, specifically the Normandy Plaza. Cruisers gather mostly on the weekend, Jahnke said.

Alex Krentzin, a resident who lives on Cooper, just east of the plaza, knows about the cruise noise all too well. He said in the evenings it starts around 9 p.m. and gets louder and louder until midnight. He said he’s even been awakened by pre-cruisers at 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.

“I don’t care if people want to cruise 24/7 and loiter for one week in August, but this spring- and summer-long cruise loitering activity needs to stop,” he said.

Krentzin said he thinks police should be funded better so they could have more patrols on Woodward, and perhaps businesses could hire security guards to stop the pre-cruise activity.

Jahnke said the early cruising is not something that is very surprising.

“It’s something we anticipate, we just don’t know what it’s going to start,” he said.

In Birmingham, one of the other cruise hotspots, all is calm — for now.

“The closer it gets to the Dream Cruise, we start to see more and more people on Woodward. Right now we haven’t had any problems,” said Birmingham Police Cmdr. Mark Clemence.

If groups that are respectful of others, don’t leave trash behind and avoid playing boom boxes gather early, Clemence said the police will typically turn a blind eye.

“We try and be tolerant of those types of groups that are just out there trying to enjoy the evening, socialize and have fun,” he said.

But if any of those issues becomes a problem with those in nearby neighborhoods, early cruisers leave behind trash or any drag racing is involved, police will shut the operation down immediately.

“If an officer observes anyone doing any drag racing, we obviously take action right away because it’s against the law and dangerous for everybody involved,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Carroll at jcarroll@candgnews.com or at (586) 279-1110. You can reach Staff Writer Mary Beth Almond at malmond@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1060.