Retail thefts, vandalism of nearby homes and businesses, and assaults on SEPTA bus drivers should all be history, thanks to an agreement between Mayfair Civic Association and WOW.
The accord is a winner for Mayfair: Special events for local residents and members of the Northeast Peanut League, an annual barbecue, special nights for students from local parochial schools, donations to Mayfair Town Watch and the civic group. Folks, it doesn’t get much better than that.
The civic association’s members and their leaders surely had known all along that forcing WOW to close down forever would have been neither fair nor feasible. It would have been overkill, much ado about a little.
And WOW officials surely knew all along that in the interest of being the good neighbors that they are, business as usual could not continue.
While we wonder how many people who complained about WOW ever bothered to get off their behinds to volunteer with Mayfair Town Watch, we take our hats off to the folks at Mayfair Civic. They showed just how important civic associations are. They didn’t just sit there and take it. They didn’t play the old "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" game. They didn’t roll over and play dead. They were mad as hell and they didn’t take it anymore. They exposed the problems, made noise and took action. The way they reacted, and acted, you would think they were building a strong community. They are.
Everybody in Northeast Philadelphia can learn something from the Mayfair Civic Association. ••
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