Port Jefferson Mayor Margot Garant says she is considering
numerous options to get a handle on the recent uptick in violence in the quaint
village.
One of the measures she could take is instituting a curfew
of 2 a.m. instead of 4 a.m.
Roger Rutherford, the Port Jefferson Business Improvement
District president, says that is not the answer, saying that a fatal daytime
shooting in March had nothing to do with the bar scene.
"We have to be tough in policing, that whenever there
is a crime that's committed, it's prosecuted and followed through," he
said. "…We cannot let the petty crimes and petty violence to go on because
that's going to escalate into what you saw here a few nights ago."
Investigators say 19-year-old
Joseph Garcia was the gunman
who pulled the trigger, killing 25-year-old David Bliss Jr. on Main Street. He
was charged with second-degree murder.
Over the weekend, two young men were
shot in the parking
lot outside Tommy's Place on Main Street after an argument early Saturday
morning. Ethan Ladd, of Port Jefferson Station, is facing two counts of assault
and was released on bail Monday.
Thomas Schafer, the owner of Tommy's Place, says the
young men involved in Saturday's shooting were not in his bar. He called the
mayor’s possible curfew plan “despicable” so early into the season and on the
back of a pandemic-stricken year.
Garant has also called for more Suffolk police officers
to patrol. Suffolk police released a statement:
“The department has officers specifically tasked with
patrolling the Village of Port Jefferson during peak times of activity.
Additionally, the department is in the process of bolstering patrols on the
weekends."