Several weeks ago we received a call from a woman who preferred to remain nameless. She was distressed about the condition of the stairway that used to lead to the bowling alley from the parking lot on Locust Street behind the Plandome Road stores. The caller said that she was especially disturbed because the stairway was immediately adjacent to the rear exit from Manhasset Video where she goes with her children. She said that the trash was so bad that she feared there might even be rats in the vicinity. She had the name of the landlord but had called him and gotten no satisfactory response. We told her we would see what we could do to help. We called Town Hall and asked for Commissioner of Public Safety Jon Kaiman, who referred us to his assistant, Shawn Brown. Mr. Brown said he would refer the case to the highway department, under whose aegis it falls. We received a call from the highway department a few days later to say that an inspector, Scott Tirone, had been assigned to the job. (Incidentally we drove past the site ourselves and saw that our caller had not exaggerated as to the condition of the stairwell.) Mr. Tirone called us and said that he had been in touch with the owner and given him a warning that a summons would be served if the site was not cleaned up in a few days. It is our pleasure to report that we visited the site again several days later, fully expecting it to be in the same condition, and found that it had been thoroughly cleaned up. So a tip of the hat to the Code Enforcement Department. It's gratifying to see government working well.

E.F.B.