Patchogue business district considers adding security cameras

The Patchogue Village Business Improvement District is considering installing three security cameras on Main Street beginning June 1 as a part of its 2014-15 budget.

Currently, there are 31 businesses in Patchogue Village with security cameras installed. Last summer, footage from those cameras was used to identify a suspect in a sexual assault case, according to Suffolk police.

More than 40 security cameras are currently in operation in Huntington Station, according to Patchogue authorities, and have yielded success in fighting crime.

In Patchogue, police investigating possible crimes must go to the business owners and ask for the footage, officials said. According to village Trustee Thomas Ferb, installing new village cameras would allow police to access footage in real time via smartphones and without any proprietor's permission, which would speed up investigations.

"Surveillance cameras are a huge deterrent for criminal mischief and vandalism," Ferb said.

Insp. Aristides Mojica, commanding officer of Suffolk's Fifth Precinct, said he hopes the three new cameras, which will cost the improvement district $10,000, will make a "significant difference" in village safety.

"Maybe somebody will think twice before they behave badly," Mojica said.

Officials said the business improvement district hopes to install one of the three new cameras near the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts, 71 E. Main St., and a second at 10 South Ocean Ave. The third camera would be installed at 70 W. Main St.

The theater gets about 130,000 visits per year, according to executive director John Ashline.