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MANTECA UNDER SIEGE
Buckets of feces & urine, open use of drugs
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A homeless camp adjacent to The Hair Company beauty salon has created health and safety problems for employees and customers. - photo by PHOTOS CONTRIBUTED
The area behind a shuttered taqueria undergoing renovations has turned into a magnet for homeless and vagrants that are impacting adjacent businesses and creating a potential health problem by filling open buckets with urine and feces.The homeless encampment in the 600 block of West Yosemite just west of downtown has been creating a problem for the past several months. Adjacent business owner Janice Ward of The Hair Company indicated in order for customers not to be scared away from late afternoon appointments her staff has been forced to escort clients to and from their vehicles.Ward said her repeated calls for city to enforce municipal ordinances that are supposed to prevent such a homeless camp from taking hold have fallen on deaf ears. And that includes repeated complaints entered through the city’s Internet-based government outreach.Besides customers worrying about their safety, homeless and/or vagrants go to the bathroom in the alley, use drugs in plain sight of the business, and trash the surrounding neighborhood.The homeless have placed cardboard and mattresses behind the taqueria near the rear of their shop.