‘Last week I saw a woman with a syringe hanging out of her armpit’
CHOOSE Life is in Llanelli’s Copperworks Road. Around the corner, in Station Road, business owners had less sympathy with drug users.
Mustafa Hakman is the 54-yearold owner of the Willow Cafe.
“I’ve been here for 11 years and it is getting better, but all the same people are here – they are all druggies and alcoholics,” the dad of four said. “They get their methadone from the chemist but they are also drinking and we are paying through our taxes.”
He said drop-in centres in the area led to people “coming together” and added: “I don’t recommend coming anywhere near here after six.”
Mustafa continued: “I’ve seen a minimum of 12 [drug users] today. Walking up and down every day from the morning until the evening. They do it in the back lane. Last week I saw a woman with a syringe hanging out of her armpit. It’s disgusting.”
There is foil on the floor in the lane. And Mustafa has a number on his fridge to call in case he finds needles.
“I don’t bother calling now,” he said. “I just pick them up and chuck them in the bin. I don’t want my kids to play in the backyard because every morning I have to check it to see whether it is safe.”
He said when addicts go into his cafe they “ruin my business”.
“If I handle it myself then I’m committing a crime, although every time I do need to call the police they are here in about five minutes,” he said.
“I’ve barred all of them – would you want to sit next to a druggie? I’ve chained up the tips box on the counter now. I used to have boxes for Marie Curie and the Poppy Appeal but they were nicking them so I don’t have the charity boxes any more. I’m going at the end of the year. I’m leaving the country and going to Thailand.”
Adam Ozmen runs Llanelli Kebab Shop next door. He said his business had been burgled twice by thieves who took everything from cash to pizza cheese.
“There are a lot of people on heroin here – that and cocaine,” he said. “It’s not good. At night time, when I work, it’s a lot more dangerous than during the day.
“One young girl walking down Station Road, someone came out of one of the flats and just stuck a glass in her face – that was a few months ago.
“You see people who smoke hash and they are no trouble but you’ve got people on heroin, spice and whatever else,” Adam said.
“On the weekend cocaine is the rage and between that and the alcohol you’ve got a problem. It’s an impossible situation.”
Llanelli councillor Jeff Owen’s ward covers Station Road, where the problems are mainly at one end of the street – “the lower end” near the train tracks – but “tarnished the whole area”.
“There is certainly a problem there, what with the amount of deaths there last year,” he said.
“Over the last 20 years the area has become tremendously rundown. The problem on Station Road, in fact the whole Tyisha ward, is the amount of private lets.
“Builders are buying up family homes and they are turning them into flats.
“It’s a complex problem and there are lots of things we are trying to do.
“There are too many people with drug problems on Station Road,” he said.
“How are they going to get off drugs if they are all congregating there?
“If anyone comes to Station Road and wants to get off drugs it is going to be difficult to do so with the people who are still on it and a lot of them don’t want to get off drugs.”