BY JOYCE BLAY
Staff Writer

LAKEWOOD — Instead of creating a muster zone where day laborers would be able to hook up with prospective employers, municipal officials are considering a crackdown on employers of day laborers.

At the final Township Committee meeting of 2005, Mayor Charles Cunliffe announced that he would abandon the initiative to create a muster zone in the wake of opposition from downtown merchants. He said merchants no longer wanted a muster zone to be created in a parking lot across the street from the All Saints Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue (Route 9), between 1st and 2nd Streets.

Charles Anthony, director of Under His Wing, a soup kitchen and food pantry located at All Saints Episcopal Church, submitted a proposal earlier in the year to create the muster zone at the parking lot.

His proposal for the $80,000 project included funding for security guards, maintenance personnel and equipment, and a system for registering day laborers and prospective employers.

Anthony thanked officials for their consideration of his muster zone proposal. He said, “Our mission is to serve. If we can help the township in any other capacity, then give us a call.”

Cunliffe said money from the town’s Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) might have been used to fund the creation of the muster zone.

Anthony said downtown merchants initially expressed support for his proposal. By the Dec. 1 committee meeting, their support had apparently waned.

Moses and Minna Shvarzblat, who own Dina’s Dinettes on Clifton Avenue and Second Street, spoke about the proposal.

Moses Shvarzblat said he did not believe a muster zone should be placed in the downtown area. He said it would take away needed parking and could prompt businesses to leave town.

Minna Shvarzblat said money from the UEZ is supposed to go back to the improvement of the town.

In a vote of 4-1 on Dec. 22, with Committeeman Ray Coles voting no, committee members agreed to discuss creating an ordinance in 2006 that would prohibit anyone from stopping, standing, cruising, or double- or triple-parking in order to hire day laborers in Lakewood.

Anyone cited for the offense would initially be given a printed warning. After 45 days, police would begin issuing summonses for violations of the ordinance. Cunliffe said that with each violation incurred, the fine would go up.

Coles said he voted no because such legislation was intended to work in conjunction with the creation of a muster zone as a two-step solution to the issue of immigrants congregating in the business district to seek work.

“I didn’t know we would be discussing [such an ordinance in place of a muster zone],” he said. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t vote for the ordinance. It was just ill-timed.”

During the meeting’s public forum, resident David Drukaroff, who is employed as a clerk in the township’s inspections department, took issue with two of the downtown merchants who had expressed opposition to the creation of a muster zone.

Reading from a prepared statement, Drukaroff focused on comments made at the Dec. 1 committee meeting by the Shvarzblats, which he suggested were hypocritical.

“Mr. Shvarzblat is not happy that a lot of migrants gather on Clifton Avenue, including the front of his store, looking for work,” he said. “Mr. Shvarzblat forgot to mention that he is building an apartment building on Cedarbridge Avenue.

“Since Mr. Shvarzblat has to run his dinette business, he probably hired a building contractor to build the apartment building. I have no doubt that the building contractor found his labor force on Clifton Avenue. In other words, the people Mr. Shvarzblat doesn’t like in front of his store probably built his apartment building and most of the housing where his customers and customers of other Clifton Avenue businesses live,” Drukaroff said.

Minna Shvarzblat responded to Drukaroff’s statement in an interview with the Tri-Town News. She said she had hired a construction company that she believed had steady workers.

“As far as I know, they are not scouting for day laborers on Clifton Avenue,” she said.