She rushes into the restaurant: ‘Sorry I’m late. I walked past residents on the way here and I couldn’t be rude.†Sitting down, she quickly scrolls through the menu: ‘Do you mind if I order? Otherwise I won’t have time to eat today.â€
Sharon Sabbagh (47) was elected by the Democratic Alliance to Johannesburg’s Ward 87 in 2006. Ward 87 spans some of the city’s most affluent old suburbs, including The Parks, Westcliff and Forest Town, and their grittier little sister, Melville, where we are meeting.
The folk who live here are a tough crowd to please, yet in two years Sabbagh has achieved what some residents call miracles. And top cop David Thembe says: ‘I love her to bits.â€
Some of Sabbagh’s most celebrated feats include chasing down thieves in her trainers, personally interrupting street-corner drug deals, waging a one-woman war against graffiti artists. Her behaviour has, though, been criticised by the artists, who had the authority from the school principal to daub its walls. However, she also saved a Melville church — supposedly under Heritage Act protection — from being auctioned off.
Several of her interventions have resulted in police action, and three weeks ago she made headlines when a tip-off by street kids led to her and a group of residents catching a man in the act of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy in a Melville public toilet.
The alleged abuser has since been charged and the victim, with Sabbagh’s assistance, is receiving antiÂretrovirals and has been reunited with his mother.
As she talks about the boy, she blinks back tears: ‘Who are we to judge streetchildren or blame them for living on the street? They’re always blamed for crimes.â€
Sabbagh, an accountant by profession, is a single parent with four children aged from 13 to 20. These days she is accompanied on her self-styled night patrols by a growing group of Ward 87 constituents. But in the beginning, she pounded the streets alone, armed only with a video camera and a mission.
‘I once ran a kilometre and a half after two men who robbed a domestic worker in the street. Security guards saw me running and we caught the one man. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail.â€
Sabbagh, who has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and competed in the women’s Tour de France twice, started her midnight-to-5am patrols in December. Since then 30 people, from drunk drivers to drug dealers, have been arrested .
Her view is simply that someone has to do it. ‘I want to live in a society where people can stop hiding behind their walls. A society where families can go for a walk on a Sunday without fearing for their lives.â€
Not all Sabbagh’s interventions are so adrenalin-charged, but require a slog through by-laws instead. She is caught up in a protracted campaign around the ‘issuing of liquor licences without consulting the community, the local authorities or the councilâ€. Sabbagh says this has been her hardest challenge to date, running for more than a year, ‘but I won’t give upâ€.
Another project requiring more stamina than speed is ‘to improve relations between the police, the Johannesburg Metro Police Department [JMPD] and the communityâ€.
Thembe, the operational director of the JMPD, laughs when asked about Sabbagh. ‘She comes up with great ideas and she’s always positive,†he says.
‘She motivates the police. When I talk to her I don’t feel like I’m talking to a politician, more an official of the law. She just pops in. People like her keep you on your toes.†To that end, she has collected 700 photographs of graffiti around the city.
She answers the obvious question before I can ask it: ‘Luckily I’m one of those people with lots of energy and I can survive with very little sleep.†Even the lettuce on her almost untouched plate has started to look tired.
Her phone rings. She looks at me apologetically before answering. Now and then she waves to someone who recognises her; a man stretches through the window to greet her. Then with half the food left on her plate she gets up in a flurry of bags and papers, disappearing between the cars of Seventh Street.