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A GAME SHOP that is allegedly managed by a Steenberg Community Police Forum member and Ward 72 committee representative, has been the butt of controversy between neighbours in Strauss Avenue in Cafda for the past eight years.

Residents from Strauss Avenue called an urgent and impromptu meeting with People's Post on Thursday, 3 April to complain about and demand a stop to the supposed high noise levels, swearing and illicit goings-on by the children and young adults that frequent the game shop.

Resident Eva Davids hosted a meeting with representatives of 10 households in the avenue who say they have called the police "so many times to complain about the ugly things that happen at the game shop", but nothing ever happens.

Davids says at one time she saw three young boys push a young girl up against wall outside the shop.

Another resident who lives close by to the shop says that she has found used condoms in her garden after a night of "fun and games" at the shop.

Another resident said that the young patrons of the shop have apparently thrown bricks at residents' houses and dogs.

"They [the children] have no respect," said one resident. The language used at the shop has been described as ?foul and terrible".

Apparently, during school-times children do not attend school, but go to the game shop while still wearing their school uniforms. A resident who could not deal with the situation any longer says he approached a superintendent at the Steenberg Police Station in February this year to complain about the matter, but the officer told him he would be going on leave and that he would attend to the matter when he returned.

The resident says he remembers the day because it was the day after the baboons ran amuck in Retreat.

"I went into the Superintendent's office and I waited a long time, and he wrote down my details on a piece of paper. Every day since, after coming home from work, I ask my wife if he has phoned," said the resident.

Inspector Hermanus van Dyk from Steenberg Police Station says the police station has not received any formal complaints from a Strauss Road resident.

However, Henry Thomas, the owner and manager of the game shop, says that the police have visited the premises in response to the residents' complaints, but they could not find a problem.

Thomas says that he is working with Councillor Jan Burger to find a way to keep young people off the streets, and that he is a member of the CPF.

He also says his neighbours have never approached him to talk him directly about any problems they may have. He says his game shop is a way of keeping young people off the street.

"Children are noisy, and they do at times backchat the residents, but I have spoken to them," he says. He says that he has himself called the police to arrest a young man who tried to sell dagga on his property.

Thomas also says that the allegation of carnal activity at the game shop is nothing but a blatant lie. "They want to blacken my name," he says.

Kevin Southgate, the chairperson of the CPF, says that while Thomas attends mee?tings at the CPF, he is not a member. "If he is contravening the code of the CPF he will not be allowed to attend any more meetings," says Southgate.

Councillor Burger of Ward 72 says that people must commit to staying within the law. "It is easy to run to the newspapers, but if the council gave him the rights to run a business, people must follow the correct procedures for those rights to be revoked," says Burger.

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