Elmhurst Clean & Green

On the front page of the Sept. 27 Providence Journal there is an article concerning the parties and underage drinking that has taken place over the years in the Providence College area and how the matter is now being addressed by the police and the colleges. There is also an article on page A12 on the arrests this week of underage students, including one Johnson & Wales student who was in possession of a knife and numerous bags of marijuana.

As many of you know, one of the reasons that we started EC&G was to address the amount of trash generated in the neighborhood, particularly by the students. As a matter of fact, this was an agenda item for our last meeting but we decided to hold the discussion until October. We have held numerous clean ups in the past two years, several of which were in conjunction with a great group of students from PC. We have also approached two of the colleges to ask for their support by providing trash barrels, dealing with specific ‘problem’ tenants, etc.

So it is fantastic to hear that Councilman Michael Solomon, the police, and the colleges are working together on ways to control the “party zone”, from adding police foot patrols to having the three colleges take responsibility for weekly neighborhood cleanups. In addition, Councilman Solomon is drafting an ordinance focusing on landlords who rent to troublesome tenants.

I just had the pleasure of speaking with Lt. Daniel Gannon, the district commander for the area, who is responsible for this “Operation Red Cup”. He has already met with representatives from Providence College and some of the landlords in the area and is next meeting with officials from Johnson & Wales and Rhode Island College. The Lieutenant is pro-active in his approach to crime prevention and has implemented several programs in an effort to curb crime and make our community a better place to live. I am very pleased that Lt. Gannon will be joining us at our next EC&G meeting on October 20.