SAUGUS — A collection of trash left to accumulate outside the Square One Mall for months has now caught the attention of the Saugus Board of Health.
Abandoned shopping carts, cardboard boxes, and an overflowing trash can were still at the scene of the shopping center’s Essex Street entrance Monday evening when Board of Health chair William Heffernan addressed the issue at a committee meeting.
Referring to photos of the rubbish sent to him by a constituent, Heffernan said he was “embarrassed” by the lot’s condition.
“This is disturbing,” he said. “We’ve had issues with the Square One Mall previously. Apparently they’ve just decided this place can become a dump (now) that these stores are not open for retailers to come in.”
He added that the problem should be rectified quickly to prevent it from attracting rats or snowballing into something bigger.
In response to Heffernan’s comments, Saugus’ health agent, Joseph Tabbi, told the board he’d already met with the managers of the Square One Mall to discuss the issue.
“They were very cooperative,” he said, adding that the managers agreed to put cleaning plans in place immediately.
By Wednesday afternoon however, although the parameters of the lot were noticeably neater, several overturned shopping carts and bags of trash remained.
In a separate interview with the Item Tuesday, Heffernan suggested the mess was likely a lingering result of the mall’s nearly three-month-long closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“With the mall basically shuttering its doors for upwards of three months, I like to think it was because of COVID,” he said. “I mean, we’ve had issues with the mall before, but this was definitely a new issue in my opinion.”
The mall, which closed mid-March, was allowed to reopen to the public early last month.
To prevent future rubbish from being dumped by nearby residents, Tabbi recommended the fire department put up temporary barriers blocking off the most affected area, which extends across from Sears down Essex Street toward Melrose.
“Multiple residents of Saugus came to me and said ‘this is an embarrassment. This is a disgrace,” Heffernan said. “Even just driving down Essex Street, you can see it all. It’s a shame because it is a nice mall, but it’s unacceptable. The management team should know better.”
Square One Mall manager and spokesman, Mike Connell, did not return multiple requests for comment by the time of publication.
