NEDERLAND — A Nederland woman has launched an Change.org petition hoping to get a gas station/convenience store to get rid of the panhandlers and what she and others allege to be criminal activity.

Gena Dale, a Nederland mother whose family owns a home near Raceway on FM 365, said she has had some scary and intrusive experiences outside the store. She said she has told store employees about the incidents on a number of occasions with mixed reactions.

“It’s constant, it’s irritating and it seems to coincide with thefts in our neighborhood,” Dale said.

But a member of the store management, Chris, who declined to give his last name, suggested to the media customers and employees work as a team and call police when something odd or suspicious occurs.

“Our customers work hard for their money. We’re not a mom and pop store; we’re a franchise. We need to work as a team. I encourage if someone sees something suspicious, call the cops,” Chris said.

Chris explained that an employee spotted suspicious behavior — a man siting around for 30 minutes in the parking lot, getting out of his vehicle and walking around — on Tuesday and ended up calling police.

Nederland Police Chief Darrell Bush said between Jan. 1, 2016 and July 18 there had been 84 calls for service at the business and about 54 of them were for either a disturbance call or a suspicious subject/unwanted person call.

“The property owner controls who comes and goes on the property,” Bush said. “If they don’t want someone on their property all they have to do is call and we’ll respond and deal with it.”

Bush said that any time someone feels uneasy about something they are encouraged to call the police.

“People say all the time that they didn’t call because they didn’t want to bother us. We’d rather get a call and find out it’s nothing then for someone not to call.”

The police chief said they do get calls to the business and they do respond but a police officer can’t just pull up on private property and tell someone to leave. The business owner can file trespass charges but not the police.

Dale described some of her bad experiences in the store parking lot.

“I’ve had people ask me for money. I don‘t carry cash and they will say ‘there’s an ATM.’ I’ve had people try to sell me TVs super cheap and (the seller will) appear to be very drunk or high,” she said.

She said she has had a man stagger and lean on her vehicle while he was throwing up.

Dale isn’t the only one who doesn’t feel safe at the store. Some of the petition signers wrote of panhandlers not taking no for an answer of being followed home and more.

But panhandling itself isn’t her main worry — it’s the people who harass customers and those acting suspiciously.

“I ended up going down the road,” she said. “I’ve also seen, and this happens quite often, people walking around the parking lot looking into the vehicles when they see someone pump gas and go inside to pay. I actually yelled at a guy who wandered from behind the store and was trying a door handle.”

She also worries of the people selling the 50-inch TVs for cheap and what appears to be drug activity.

Chris said he has not seen people selling possible stolen items but he did say the management sometimes lets church groups sell items.

“We have families that come in. Do you think they’d come in if this was happening,” he said. “We select our customers. If they have a bad rep we have the right to refuse service. If they have a bad mouth or bad behavior, we don’t need that. “We’d rather lose their business and have a good rep.”

The online petition had 160 supporters as of about 2 p.m. Wednesday. Dale plans to bring the petition to the store management in the near future.

To sign or read the petition, visit Change.org. The URL is: change.org/p/raceway-owners-staff-make-the-raceway-on-hwy-365-in-nederland-safe-to-visit-again