Business owners at a Kitchener plaza on Block Line Road are increasingly concerned with the large crowds of students gathering over the lunch hour.
The plaza is next to St. Mary’s high school and some employees there say the students are creating issues that are affecting business.
Several of the businesses say security officers have been hired by the property manager.
Some think the school should be doing more to keep the students from loitering at the plaza.
“They’ll block the sidewalks and won’t move for our patients. We have patients in wheelchairs as well and they won’t move for them,” says Shelley Irvine, the manager of Flow Health and Wellness at the plaza.
She says last week she had to call police because things were so bad.
“I saw security trying to remove two girls because they had been fighting,” Irvine says.
A series of videos were uploaded to Instagram last week showing two young females in a verbal altercation with a security guard at the plaza.
Other employees at the plaza say fights happen often.
In a statement the Waterloo Catholic District School Board says “the school has had some contact with the businesses since last week. That communication will continue in hopes of mitigating any situations like this in the future.”
Irvine thinks the school should be more proactive in getting their students to stop loitering.
“Respect the people that are here. Respect the people that come in to shop or see the doctors and go back to school,” she says.
With reporting from Daryl Morris
