THE CROSS AT THE CROSSROADS

The morning after Australia's first heroin injecting room opened in Kings
Cross, everything was normal. The pubs were full, it was pouring and drug
users were sitting in the doorways of still-closed shops, either "on the
nod" - dozing after taking heroin - or rummaging in their bags for
cigarettes. Schoolgirls in uniform stepped around them on their way to the
Catholic college.

The injecting centre in Darlinghurst Road was dark and quiet, and the door
was locked. The windows are frosted, so all you could see inside was the
rough outline of chairs.

At 9.50am a staff member arrived. She had a take-away coffee steaming in
one hand and a scarf around her neck. She knocked on the door. It was
opened and she went inside.

Five minutes later the first camera crew arrived. A Channel Ten reporter
stood in front of the injecting room and filed a report.

Another five minutes passed, then the crew packed up and left. Newspaper
photographers arrived and set themselves up across the street.

And somehow, in the middle of this, the injecting centre opened for its
second day of business. Without anybody seeing how it happened, the door
was unlocked. It would have opened had you pushed it. For a long time,
nobody did.

The injecting centre, approved by the New South Wales Government 18 months
ago, opened only after a bitter battle in the Supreme Court that ended with
the defeat of the Kings Cross Chamber of Commerce. It opened discreetly, at
6pm last Sunday, when few journalists were working. In its first four hours
of operation, staff helped eight people inject heroin, significantly fewer
than the 120 expected each day. The centre's director, Ingrid van Beek,
said the media kept people away.

The centre will cost between $1.8 million and $2.4 million a year - $25,000
to $33,000 a week - to operate. The Uniting Church, which runs it, is
believed to be paying $4500 a week to rent the centre from Hoyts, which
rents it for $7000 a week from the owner, George Senes, who owns about $7
million worth of property in Kings Cross. The aim is to get drug users off
Kings Cross streets, and perhaps into rehabilitation.

The centre has the cautious support of Premier Bob Carr, who last week
dismissed concerns raised by the Chamber of Commerce, saying it represented
"drug dealers and sex shop owners".

This offended the owner of Blinky's Photo Shop, Andrew Strauss, who is a
member of the chamber. "We represent about 80 businesses, who support 3000
men, women and children," Mr Strauss said. "I have a wife and family, as do
most of the people who work in Darlinghurst Road. Because we are opposed to
the injecting room does not make us criminals."

He watched with dread as the centre opened next door to his business, and
was pleasantly surprised to find it did little business. "My biggest fear
was that we'd have druggies walking up and down the street, and that's why
we thought it should be in a back street," he said.

"But other than someone doing a drug deal in the doorway when I came to
work this morning, it's been very quiet. I go out to get coffee and do the
banking four times a day and I haven't noticed a lot of people hanging
around, but I suppose, like any business, they need time to get established."

Traders behind the injecting centre also have noticed little change.
Neighbors at the rear include "Paul", who runs the New York Restaurant.
Paul has been in the Cross since 1953, selling cheap meals to the elderly.
He was worried about finding drug users on his doorstep, and about crime.

"Just on Saturday night, I parked my car here (he points to the kerb
outside his restaurant) and went inside for less than a minute, and I got
broken into," he said. "They stole my bag. That's what I'm worried about.
People will come looking for drugs, and they need money to buy them."

One of the most prominent anti-injecting room campaigners, Raymond Nelson,
made up some protest posters, and handed out copies of an open letter to Mr
Carr.

"By legalising the shooting gallery, Premier Bob Carr has in effect
legalised the use of not one drug, heroin, but also the use of cocaine,
marijuana, amphetamines and ecstasy ..." the letter said.

Inspector Paul Jones of the Kings Cross police said this was not true. "We
have been given guidelines for how to deal with the injecting room, and
it's basically business as usual," he said.

People who deal drugs outside the centre can expect to be arrested. "We
sent the sniffer dogs out on Wednesday and they came back with an arrest,
although I think it was for marijuana," Inspector Jones said.

He said it was too early to tell if the injecting centre had encouraged
more drug dealers to visit the Cross. Nor was he able to tell if crime had
increased.

"We're doing what everybody is doing," he said. "We are waiting and seeing."