Posted on Wed, Jul. 16, 2003
Want a soda? Urine for a shock
Leaking lushes use machine for toilet
By DAN GERINGER
geringd@no-spam
THE Daily News Stinkmeister got a desperate call from Raoji Prajapati,
who said, "I have a newsstand at Frankford and Oxford, under the
Margaret-Orthodox El station. They're urinating in my Coke machine and
in my Pepsi machine. You reach in there for a soda, you don't know
what you're touching."
Grabbing his gas mask, the voice of the pee-and-poop-plagued public
sped to Prajapati's pee-stained newsstand.
The urine stench emanating from the two soda machines brought tears to
S-Meister's eyes.
So did the thought of reaching into those machines - after Prajapati
pointed out the urine stains near their delivery holes.
The space between the machines was soaked in fresh urine.
Prajapati showed the Stinkmeister where pee ran around the base of his
newsstand to where customers line up to buy papers, candy and lottery
tickets.
Then he pointed to nearby benches where the two leading urinators,
Jimmy and Ray - old school, weather-beaten, filth-encrusted guzzlers -
sat drinking amber liquid out of plastic Mountain Dew bottles.
"That's not Mountain Dew," Prajapati said. "That's beer."
When Ray stood up to stretch his legs, it was clear that he had
defecated in his pants. He didn't seem to be aware of it.
"They sleep behind my newsstand every night," Prajapati said. "They
pee. They poop. I work here from 6 in the morning to 7 at night. I
clean with Pine Sol and with bleach. They keep coming back. This is
their bedroom and their bathroom. Mostly, their bathroom."
Until now, Stinkmeister's patrols have concentrated on Center City,
where an army of eliminators has defined the smell of Philadelphia as
pee - and sometimes poop.
But Daily News readers report that excrement is splattered across the
region. Prajapati's newsstand proves a hearty stench can thrive
outside Center City.
Prajapati came to this country in 1971, earned a chemistry degree and
worked as a lab technician until he saved enough to start a grocery in
Camden.
He opened the Frankford newsstand in 1986, and life was good until
Jimmy, Ray and their fellow beer-drunks began peeing on it last
summer.
This summer's worse.
"You tell them to move, they just look at you like you're nuts," said
Prajapati's friend, Frank Banning. "They say, 'You can't do nothing
about it.' "
"And talking to the cops is like talking to that soda machine," said
newsstand regular Vincent Piccone.
Prajapati is not sure whether the property his newsstand sits on is
SEPTA's or the city's. He only knows that neither SEPTA nor city cops
have rid him of the oozing boozehounds.
"When I call, sometimes the police come, sometimes they don't," he
said. "When they do come, they say, 'If we don't see them drinking, we
can't do anything.' The drunks hide their bottles when they see cops."
But Stinkmeister believes that when you see a guy staggering around
the newsstand in pants stained with the feces he has just deposited in
them, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that if you
observe him for awhile, you might catch him peeing on the Coke
machine.
Will either the city or SEPTA acknowledge ownership of the sidewalk
under the Margaret-Orthodox El station - and get Jimmy and Ray into a
treatment center so they stop peeing on Prajapati's business?
He is a responsible small businessman who pays his taxes. Isn't he
entitled to basic services, such as police protection from leaking
lushes? Confronted with a noxious puddle or pile, call the Daily News
Stinkmeister, voice of the pee-and-poop-plagued public! Phone
Stinkmeister's hotline: 215-854-2600.
Or e-mail Stinkmeister: stink@no-spam
Stinkmeister thanks you for your dozens of calls and e-mails
yesterday. He will investigate the stinkiest spots and expose them in
future reports.
If you catch the Peeing Tom in the act, call the cops at 911 or
215-685-9500.
Report a "toxic spill" or "illegal dumping" in a SEPTA station to the
nearest cashier, who will summon a porter to clean it up. Or call
SEPTA customer service: 215-580-7800