Exclusive: Residents Of Newark Apartment Complex Say Property Owner Isn't Providing Adequate Security
NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- Some residents at a Newark apartment complex say they feel their safety is at risk due to inadequate security, an issue they've been fighting over for years.
The Colonnades is a 20-floor, 560-unit apartment complex, home to nearly 1,000 people, like Daisy Johnson.
The 83-year-old says her 45 years of living there took a turn for the worse in 2018. It's the year she says new property owner PF Holdings cut security staffing.
"That is when our nightmare started," she told CBS2's Cory James.
The nightmare, she and other neighbors say, involved doors being left open, strangers sleeping in the building and only one guard on duty to manage two separate entrances.
Johnson remembers the day she says someone made it past the unmanned security desk on her side of the building and rang her doorbell, pretending to be law enforcement.
"I answered, 'Yes, who is it?' He said, 'Policeman,'" Johnson said. "It was nerve-wracking."
Freedom Bremer is a resident and the apartment's association president. He too is outraged.
"If there's a fire on the 17th floor of the C building and somebody slips and falls in a puddle of water on the second floor of the D building, there's one person who has to to deal with both those things, one person," he said.
CBS2 reached out to PF Holdings to get its side of the story.
Attorney Derek Reed said this is the third time the city of Newark has cited his client for alleged violation of its security guard ordinance.
According to Reed, it was thrown out in 2018 and most recently in February 2021, where it was "dismissed because defendant is in compliance with the ordinance."
That ordinance states additional security is required for a complex with more than one building, but residents say while the Colonnades looks like one structure, it has two separate entrances with separate addresses.
Bremer believes that is allowing PF Holdings to legally leave tenants with one guard.
"If that ordinance really had been changed and really worked, then where is the enforcement?" he said. "There's nothing to stop PF Holdings from being 'overly compliant' ... But then too, the City Council, they are allowing this loophole to stay."
"I don't want to ... fight for what I'm paying for," Johnson said.
The possible loophole is leaving elderly residents like Johnson wondering when their sense of security will be restored.
