http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/419641p-354350c.html
Phones put on hold Daily News Exclusive BY JOTHAM SEDERSTROM DAILY NEWS WRITER Omar Sharhan at store on Brighton Beach Ave. that made $45 a day by charging students $1 to hold cell phones. Gary Collier said he has found phones hidden by students in brush near his home on Brighton Third Lane. The toughened cell phone ban at city schools is forcing teenagers to find creative places to stash their phones - using trash cans, bushes and even sewer grates as hiding places. The ban even inspired one Brighton Beach deli in Brooklyn to charge $1 each to baby-sit kids' phones and gadgets during school hours - a business proposition that raked in $45 a day. At Te-Amo deli, manager Omar Sharhan, 22, said that weeks after he agreed to hold a student's phone last year, word got around. He and co-workers soon began storing as many as 45 phones at a time at $1 a pop. Each gadget was put in a bag with the student's name on it, Sharhan said. But the store quickly realized the extra dough wasn't worth the aggravation. "It wasn't just cell phones - they were giving us their iPods, their PSPs [PlayStation Portables] and their head phones," said Sharhan, who no longer holds the phones. Students interviewed by the Daily News said they have been stashing their phones outside of schools because they don't want to have to go through the hassle of getting their phones confiscated - then waiting on line to get their phones back at the end of the school day. "Mostly everybody does it," said Vince Williams, a senior at Grady High School in Brighton Beach. "If they're leaving it at home it's probably because they hid it once and it got stolen." Armando Garcia, 18, said he doesn't worry about losing his phone - even though he routinely drops it in a garbage can near his school. "People walk past it every day, and never see a thing," said Garcia, a junior at Brooklyn's Lincoln High School, adding that he also has hidden his phone in an apartment building's laundry room near the school. Brighton Beach homeowner Gary Collier said he's caught students retrieving phones from his backyard twice - and his jaw dropped when he learned one of the gadgets was a $400 T-Mobile Sidekick. "I just happened to see them last week, but who knows how long this has been going on," said Collier, 60, a retired Legal Aid Society paralegal. "When kids are going to these lengths, it's clear we've gotten off the beaten path." The cell phone ban has existed for years, but it picked up renewed interest and controversy last month after the Education Department ordered security officials to use magnetometers at random schools. Until then, metal detectors were primarily used in schools with high crime rates - meaning that most schools, especially the better ones, seldom had the cell phone ban enforced. Last week, a citywide parents group said it was considering a lawsuit seeking to overturn the cell phone ban. "It's stupid," said Anquinette Dunton, a Grady freshman who said she hides her phone on window ledges at a home two blocks from school. "I live all the way in Flatbush. I have asthma. I need my phone." Originally published on May 21, 2006 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TELECOM-CITIES Current searchable archives (Feb. 1, 2006 to present) at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Old searchble archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
