CRUSIN' USA; OFFICIALS: IT'S A NUISANCE

All the kids are doing it.

They jump in a car -- their own or someone else's -- and begin that never-ending driving pattern America calls cruising. It usually happens on Fridays and Saturdays, but any summer night is perfect for it.

With the windows down and stereos blasting, young people drive up and down a preset path known to all. They usually stop in a parking lot for a while to talk and watch passing traffic.

Most adults know where the cruising area is and avoid it at all costs.

In Cape Girardeau it is a 12-block section of Broadway. In Perryville it is the length of St. Joseph Street. In Sikeston it is actually a large, private parking lot in the middle of town.

Most of the smaller cities in the region have their hot spots, too. Whether in large cities or small, police departments must figure out how to control cruising and associated problems.

Howard Boyd Jr., Cape Girardeau's police chief, said parents shouldn't confuse the safe, innocent cruising of their youth with what goes on today. Many teens have their first contact with sex, drugs and underage drinking on that stretch of Broadway.

The teens also lean out of car windows, sit on trunks of convertibles, peel out and practice a number of other unsafe driving habits, Boyd said. With shoplifting, assault and more serious crimes in other parts of the city, the Cape Girardeau police force doesn't have the manpower to stop every unsafe teen cruiser.

Most business owners and residents on Broadway aren't thrilled with the practice.

Sue Stanfield, owner of Blimpie's, said business at her sandwich shop has been affected by youngsters who loiter in her parking lot before closing time. She gets stuck cleaning up their beer bottles and other trash on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

A Cape Girardeau ordinance says a sign must be placed on property to warn against trespassing. Without the sign, police can do little to stop the practice.

Stanfield put up a "no loitering" sign. Five days later it was torn down and mangled. She had it fixed and put back up. A teen in a pickup truck promptly ran it over and was referred to the juvenile authorities for property damage.

"I hate for it to be like this," Stanfield said. "But if I didn't have to pick up everything off my parking lot, there probably wouldn't be a problem.

"I worry about my employees, too: You never know when they're going to make the wrong kid mad."

Coralee Sample owns Pop's Pizza on North Clark Street, just a few yards from Broadway. She generally allows cruisers to sit on her lot as long as they clean up their trash and stay out of trouble, although they don't always do that.

A Sikeston businesswoman, Laura Stone, said her own children were once among the people cruising in front of Stone's Video. Her video shop, along with the Malco Trio Theater and several other businesses, sits in the Midtowner Village.

The parking lot is a popular hangout on Friday and Saturday nights. People drive east on one side and turn around and drive west on the other, making that loop for hours. According to Capt. Bob Gee of the Sikeston Department of Public Safety, the teens can't be arrested for trespassing unless the property owners call.

Police don't receive complaints on most nights.

"I only call the cops if they are fighting or throwing bottles, not just because of traffic problems," Stone said. "I sympathize with the kids because they don't have anything to do, and I'd rather have them out there than out in the country doing whatever."

One Broadway resident in Cape Girardeau had similar sentiments. Ronald Cole said he and his three roommates don't mind the hubbub on the street out front.

"Kids are going to be kids," he said. "Sure, they get a little rowdy, but it's not anything we can't get over."

A neighbor a few blocks down wasn't as forgiving. The elderly woman said she has called the police on trespassers several times during after-midnight rowdiness. The loud car stereos bother her the most.

Complaints like those have made some cities pass anti-cruising ordinances. Cape Girardeau, Sikeston and Perryville don't have them, but Park Hills did at one time.

In 1991, when Park Hills was called Flat River, city leaders passed an ordinance limiting the number of trips people could make up and down a certain street. Amy Caler, a spokeswoman for the Park Hills Police Department, said the law just seemed to make things worse.

It was repealed within the year.

Boyd said he doesn't think a similar ordinance would solve Cape Girardeau's cruising dilemma.

"They will be out cruising 50 years from now, and everyone will be complaining about it then," he said.