Warning that Central Square is turning into a crime-infested, filthy neighborhood, residents and merchants last night demanded the city increase police patrols and enforce ordinances against loitering, littering and public drinking more strictly.

"Bluntly, we feel that dramatic action is an absolute necessity now," Carl Barron, president of the Central Square Business Association, told the City Council last night.

Barron and other businessmen urged the city to increase the number of foot patrolmen in the area and to place a moratorium on new licenses for liquor and fast-food vendors in the Central Square area.

Cambridge Police Chief Leo Davenport told the council that police were assigned around-the-clock to the area and added that arrests had increased in recent months.

"Officers can't be everywhere at once, however," he said, adding that police were handicapped by laws prohibiting them from detaining alcoholics.

"If those who own properties in the area kept the fronts of their establishments clean, then Central Square too would be clean," City Manager James L. Sullivan said, adding, "It has to be a cooperative venture."

Councilors and residents pointed to rapid-transit passengers and derelicts as two of the main sources of trouble in the area.

"The MBTA is a primary factor," Councilor Saundra Graham said. "The people waiting around for the buses have got to contribute to the filth of the Square," she added.

Boiling Point

James Caragianes, a community activist in the Cambridgeport neighborhood, which borders Central Square, said, "Residents are getting a little hot under the collar--in fact, they're getting about ready to explode."

Others cited increases in serious crime in the area as a major problem. "It's not just more policemen--we have to know where they are," Miles Levine, manager of Rosenberg's Shoe Store, told the council. "The adage in Central Square is this: you can't find a cop when you need one," he added.

Davenport told the council he planned to hire a consultant from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to review staffing levels in areas around the city, including Central Square.

State police uniform crime report statistics showed an 11.9-per-cent increase in serious crimes in Cambridge in 1975. A total of 8130 crimes were reported in the city in 1979.