Even on Newbury St.
SCATTERED NEEDLES ‘SCARY, AWFUL’ READ HESLAM
Back Bay boasts old-city charm, beautiful brownstones and upscale shops — but the tony neighborhood isn’t immune to the alarming rise of used hypodermic needles haphazardly tossed on the street and in parks.
Anish Ramdev opened his bustling Indian restaurant, Dosa Factory, at one of the best locations on Newbury Street three years ago. He showed me his outside stairwell where he said brazen addicts toss their used needles after shooting up.
“They’re all over the place,” he said, adding he finds three or four syringes every morning. “You see it every day. It’s dangerous.”
Ramdev can’t lock the door to the stairwell but he fastened it so it makes a loud noise when someone tries to open it. He’s called the cops many times when addicts sneak into his restaurant’s bathroom. He’s found needles in there, too.
He has seen people step on syringes after parking their cars. About a month ago, he found a man who apparently overdosed lying on the ground in a nearby alley. “I tried waking him up,” Ramdev said, “and then I called 911.”
Newbury Street, the city’s epicenter of fashion and fine dining, has clearly not escaped the opioid crisis.
The city has seen a 60 percent increase of dirty needles cluttering public spaces since last October, a Herald/ Emerson College report stated yesterday. City workers collected 63,744 discarded needles in September alone compared to 39,879 last October, records show.
Roxbury and the South End bore the brunt of dirty needles, but they’ve also cropped up on streets in the Back Bay, including Newbury, Marlborough and Boylston streets and Commonwealth Avenue.
Beacon Street resident Suzan Keles, 52, has seen needles and people using drugs in the alley behind her brownstone. She walks through the city and has also spotted needles on Boston Common. She said the problem has worsened ever since marijuana became decriminalized.
“The more the marijuana, the more the needles,” Keles said. “What’s happened to Boston? They need to clean up the city again.”
Stephanie Saunders moved her art gallery to Newbury Street about three months ago, never thinking discarded needles would be an issue. “It’s dangerous,” Saunders said. “It’s scary. It’s awful.”
John DeMusis, 80, has lived in the Back Bay for more than 40 years. “It’s very sad,” the retired hairdresser said as he sat on the front steps of his Commonwealth Avenue home. Discarded needles, according to city reports, have been discarded on his block.
“Every time you walk on the street, you’ve got to be careful and watch out,” DeMusis said. “It’s very bad.”
DeMusis had a message for people using drugs in his neighborhood: “If you want to do that, don’t throw it in the street.
“People,” he said, “they don’t care.”