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Malcolm Gets didn't start out intending to be a criminal.
Tall, good-looking guy. Sure, maybe a little wild sometimes, growing up in Florida, and later attending Yale Drama School. Still, after moving to the city two years ago, he seemed to have settled down. A movie coming out with Jennifer Jason Leigh (she's Dorothy Parker); the lead in "Merrily We Roll Along," off Broadway; about to open as a lead in "Two Gentlemen of Verona," in Central Park. Things were good.
But there was always a dark side, too. He was irrestibily drawn to the streets.
So maybe it was inevitable that the police came knocking at his door in the East Village a few days ago, ready to arrest and cuff him.
Malcolm Gets had ridden a bicycle in Washington Square Park.
Mayor Rudolph W. Guiliani's "Quality of Life" sweep in Greenich Village had nabbed him. So many malefactors were scooped up that he had to wait in line while three officers sat at a table in the park, churning out criminal summonses.
The Mayor came into office determined to do something about the really serious problems in the city, cracking down on hot dog carts in midtown. He has probably chased more people hailing from the Indian subcontinent than the Bengal Lancers. Thanks to him, the next time you are caught in a downpour, some Sengalese won't try to foist an umbrella on you. The showcase is the Village's Sixth Precinct campaign against "quality of life" offenses, mainly loutish youths drinking beer and playing loud music.
"It was the first beautiful spring day after that hellacious winter," Mr. Gets (M, W, 30, as he was described to his pursuers) recalled, as if that was an excuse. Struggling with the bureaucracy, he finally paid a $70 fine. He often rode the mountain bike, he admitted now, cracking under skilled questioning. This guy is probably a serial cyclist.
"It was such a terrible experience," said Mr. Gets, who spent a long day in a courtroom packed with bike riders, loud-music listeners, and public urinators. "The irony is, the park is one of the biggest drug-dealing places in the city."
Leonard Drindell is another Quality-of-Life perp. It is his habit, he said, after reading Newsday, to leave it on a bench in Washington Square for someone less fortunate, and now he complains about a littering ticket. Newsday? Hey, Leonard, they should have busted you right at the stand.
Some people might think the police have better things to do. Like learn how to drive. Or decide if they are mad at the topless cop who posed for Playboy. But the word is: "Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves." Beautiful. When this gets around, there won't be a crack house in Washington Heights or a teen-ager with a 9 millimeter in East New York. Rogue cops? They'll know these people are serious.
The campaign is hugely popular among homeowners in the Village which has, indeed, long been lout-plagued. They come from Somewhere else. Fight crime at the source: close off the bridges and tunnels. The program just doesn't go far enough in dealing with Quality-of- Life menaces.
Bad ties, for example.
You should be able to make a citizen's arrest of guys wearing bad ties. Or sneering French tourists in SoHo wearing motorcycle jackets, cluttering up the sidewalk sipping their dinky little coffees. That's a Quality of Life felony.
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