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Routine patrol cops came along just in time Thursday to cuff a shoplifter on Coney Island’s boardwalk — while one of the NYPD’s special new “quality-of-life” teams ignored a crew of apparently strung-out homeless junkies who commandeered a nearby gazebo.
Officers on regular duty with the 60th Precinct happened to be in the right place at the right time to bust a thief who private store security was holding at the Brooklyn Beach Shop.
“I called 911, and it was taking a little while for them to answer, and it was just quicker for me to flag an officer down who happened to be right outside,” store owner Maya Miller told The Post.
As for the separate special five-member quality-of-life cop squad — part of Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s initiative to crack down on the most frequent 311 complaints — its members warned a dog owner about having his pup off a leash and escorted a scooter-riding scofflaw off the boardwalk.
But the quality-of-life cops walked past an apparent homeless encampment in a beachfront gazebo without doing anything — even though The Post pointed it out to the officers and police brass have said such issues would be a focal point of the special teams.
Locals griped that the unwelcome denizens are a constant nuisance.
“Those homeless guys up there? We came here at 10 a.m., and they were here,” said resident Noely Quinones. “They crash here. Quality-of-cops are going to start enforcing? I hope they do something right.”
Bath Beach resident Joe Tragona and his wife, Diane, said the encampment is an ongoing issue.
“We both grew up here, and we’ve been coming here our whole lives, and on the whole, it’s always pretty good with the police. I mean, they do a great job,” Tragona said.
“But when it starts to get dark, it’s chaos,” he said. “People having too much to drink getting too wild. You can’t really be down here then.”
Diane Tragona added, “It’s always homeless people in there.
“It’s an issue we’d like to see them clean that up.”
The gazebo encampment was still there after the special police squad called it a day.
The NYPD squad walking the boardwalk was the latest display of the new unit — part of the crew of 16 cops assigned to Q-Team duty in the 60th Precinct.
Tisch launched the effort in February and said the teams will ultimately patrol citywide for everyday nuisances such as open drug use, illegal vending, trash and other headaches for average New Yorkers.
“We’re going to roll out citywide very quickly over the course of the summer,” said NYPD Chief William Glenn, head of the department’s Quality of Life Unit. “With Manhattan North and Manhattan South mid-July and then soon after that the entire city.
“In just six commands alone, they’ve answered nearly 10,000 quality of life jobs, and they have done it responding 17 minutes faster than we had a year ago,” Glenn said. “If we encounter anyone who needs services — homeless encampments, something along those lines — we’re going to address it.”
In April, one Q-Team hit a Brooklyn neighborhood where locals had long complained about abandoned cars and illegally parked vehicles and issued dozens of summonses in the 75th Precinct.
Miller the Coney Island shop owner told The Post on Thursday, “I’m a big fan of the quality-of-life enforcement that they just put on.
“They can fill gaps in communication down here,” Miller said.
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