Westbrook police and business owners have been frustrated by increasing incidents of vandalism on Main Street.

Last week, residents who parked their cars in a Mechanic Street parking lot came out to find a nasty surprise: Vandals had slashed the tires on their cars during the night.

Fred Porell owns an apartment building across the street from the parking lot, and he said vandals hit his truck along with vehicles belonging to five of his tenants.

Porell said he wasn’t sure why someone would target that parking lot. “It’s somebody who’s got nothing better to do with their lives,” he said.

The damage to the cars last week was just the latest in a long string of incidents that have occurred throughout the summer. Businesses along Main Street have had their windows repeatedly smashed by rock throwing vandals. Ed Symbol, owner of Rookies and Full Court Press, has seen his businesses repeatedly targeted by vandals. Symbol, who is also on the City Council, said he has had to replace nine windows at Rookies and Full Court Press recently.

Sometimes he has been forced to fix a window that had just been replaced. “We put our windows in at 3 p.m., and at 11:45 that night I got a call telling me that same window was broken,” he said. “It’s very frustrating.”

Westbrook Police Capt. Tom Roth said police are still actively looking for the people responsible for the downtown vandalism. “We are looking at everything to find out who’s doing this,” he said.

Roth said police have arrested three juveniles in connection with other incidents of vandalism this summer, but police are still not certain who is responsible for the damage to Full Court Press and Rookies.

While Westbrook has had problems with vandals in the past, Roth said it is not typical to have this many incidents in a short period of time. “It’s unusual because it’s a rash of incidents,” he said. “It’s a lot occurring in a small area. We don’t know what the reasons behind it are.”

When asked whether he could remember having something like this happen to his tenants in the past, Porell said he could not remember having that much damage. “We’ve had other problems,” he said. “But nothing that serious.”

Porell said what is unfortunate about it is that people’s lives can be directly effected by others’ actions. He said most of the people who had their tires slashed last week were people that needed those cars to get to work, and they could ill afford to take the time to fix their tires.

Symbol said the expenses to continually replace the windows at the two businesses were eating into profits and hurting his business.

Police are taking the vandalism seriously, Roth said. He said police have conducted plain-clothes patrols of the area in an effort to try and catch the vandals, but they have not been successful. “We’re trying everything to catch them,” Roth said. “But they’re doing everything thy can to avoid being caught.”

Symbol said he appreciates the increased effort by the police to try and put a stop to the vandalism. But he thinks that it will be tough to put a stop to the problem.

“I don’t know if we’re going to catch them or not,” Symbol said. “It’s so random, unless you have someone stationed out there 24/7, it gets frustrating.”

Paul Council (right) and Jimmy Seeley (left), both of Main Street work to fix a tire that had been slashed by vandals in a Mechanic Street parking lot last week.This summer, Main Street business owners have been hit hard by vandals smashing windows with rocks. Rookies and Full Court Press have had nine windows smashed by rock throwing vandals recently. Rookies and Full Court Press owner Ed Symbol said the constant replacement of windows has been eating into the businesses’ profits.