Armed with new radar equipment, the Sleepy Hollow Police Department will be stepping up efforts in September to try to curb speeding throughout the village.

Police Chief John Kapica said the equipment, purchased with an $11,000 state grant, coupled with county funding that pays for more patrols on the street, will help the department deal with a pressing problem in Sleepy Hollow.

“Everyone has problems with speeding,” Kapica said. “There’s always going to be speeding in a neighborhood. You’ll never be able to stop it all. We will assign officers to hot spots that have been determined to have speeders.”

With Route 9 being notorious for speeding motorists, the radar and laser equipment, which will not be visible, will be set up along that busy roadway at different times. Other roadways in the village, such as Bedford Road, Hunter Avenue, Palmer Avenue and Hemlock Drive, which were identified as troublesome areas by some members of the village’s Police Advisory Committee, may also be under surveillance.

“We have to witness a speed violation,” Kapica stressed. “If the speed limit is 30 miles per hour, we can’t give a ticket for 31 miles per hour. It won’t hold up in court. On the low end, it has to be 10 miles per hour (over the limit). On Broadway (Route 9), 15 miles per hour. We like to give the benefit of the doubt to the person in the vehicle.”

Kapica noted speeding in an area is considered a problem if 85% of traffic is exceeding the speed limit.

“Speeding on 9 is an issue,” he remarked.

Speeding was just one of several “quality of life” issues discussed at the second gathering of the Police Advisory Committee August 23 at Village Hall. The 10-member volunteer group was appointed by Mayor Ken Wray earlier this summer after Kapica recommended it be established since he found a similar group in Greenburgh to be beneficial to the police department when he served for many years as chief there.

“It’s good to put your cards on the table and say, ‘this is what’s bothering me. What are you going to do about it?’” he said. “If I can’t do something because of a lack of resources, I tell them. It’s a two-way street. I also bring my concerns to them.”

Drugs in the inner village is something the Police Department has been focusing on. Kapica said the Greenburgh Drug and Alcohol Task Force made about a dozen arrests for drug use and drug sales over the last 12 months in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown.

Dealers are often apprehended after confidential informants, who work with the police, make controlled purchases.

“We will take any information we can get,” Kapica said. “There’s no doubt there are some drug issues. ”

Underage drinking, littering and public urination also received attention from members of the Police Advisory Committee.

Forty-six year Washington Street resident Edna Belanich, who brought a handful of small plastic bags to the initial meeting of the committee in July to demonstrate drug use in the community, brought another show-and-tell item to the committee and Kapica’s attention last week, this time a used condom wrapper.

“This is on the sidewalk. I don’t want to find something like this in front of my house,” she said, alleging people were having sex in cars in the village. “I’m a stickler for ordinances and I’m a stickler for rules.”

Another committee member, Ana Lopez, said it’s important for the committee and police to focus on issues that affect the entire village.

“The whole community has problems. We have to look at the community as a whole,” she said.

While some issues committee members address may be uncomfortable, Trustee David Schroedel said airing such concerns publicly can only help the police do their job better.

“I think it’s a very useful thing and this is part of the chief’s efforts to get the Police Department accredited,” he said.

The Police Advisory Committee is scheduled to meet again September 27.