AGAINST THE LAW VANCOUVER

Whatever its charms, this city has an overwhelming problem. It is
street crime and disorder, the in-your-face variety that no one,
however careful, can avoid. Open drug use, prostitution, street
fighting and aggressive panhandling: for decades, these have
frightened and vexed residents, community leaders and visitors.

Understaffed and overwhelmed, police say things are only getting worse.

The Mayor, Sam Sullivan, says he's sick of it. He knows that
unchecked lawlessness could threaten Vancouver's attributes, such as
its mild climate, its beauty, its laid-back reputation for
permissiveness. The 2010 Olympic Winter Games are on the horizon.
Mayor Sullivan worries about the impression such places as the
drug-infested Downtown Eastside will make when the world arrives. He
says others should worry, too.

The days of political "inertia" and nervous hand-wringing are over,
he declared in an interview with the National Post this week.
Vancouver's long, slow descent into lawlessness must stop.

Mayor Sullivan notes that the problems are city wide, and not limited
to the Downtown Eastside. But he denies a sweeping "crackdown" is on
the agenda. He is too careful a politician to allow it; he knows he
would be accused of mean-spiritedness and brutality. Vancouver social
activists, their allies inside city hall, and the city's left wing
media would accuse him of sending out the shock troops, leaving him
vulnerable to defeat when the next civic elections are held next year.

The last thing he wants is to be considered a law-and-order mayor,
the Rudy Giuliani of the North. "I am caricatured as a guy who just
wants to clean up the place," he complains. "That, I reject."

After all, Vancouver prides itself on "sensitivity and
progressiveness," no matter how misplaced or myopic. "We need to do
things in a compassionate and inclusive way," says the Mayor.

So what to make of ambitious initiatives he has launched in the past
few months, aimed at public disorder?

In November Mayor Sullivan unveiled Project Civil City, a plan to
"eliminate" homelessness, illicit drug sales, and aggressive
panhandling in Vancouver, by 50%. He wants the targets met in time
for the 2010 Olympic games.

Last month, the city hired former B.C. attorney general Geoff Plant
to oversee the effort. A lawyer now in private practice, Mr. Plant
has $300,000 at his disposal; considering the scale of the problem,
and the targets he is supposed to meet, this seems a pittance.

Mr. Plant insists the task is "achievable." But he is not prepared to
set out at night, prowling city streets and fighting crime. Rather,
he wants to meet with people, talk about solutions, and discuss which
individuals may need help.

"Let's talk about where to focus our efforts," says Mr. Plant. "We
may find it's more useful to spend more money on root cause issues,"
such as mental illness, he adds, "rather than on the criminal justice
system, which is a dumping ground" for offenders.

It's that "sensitivity" thing again. Mr. Plant wasn't hired to
frustrate troublemakers; his approach, like the one advanced by the
mayor, is to try and find ways to help them out.

Still, Mr. Plant agrees that hiring more police to tackle public
disorder "would probably make a real difference? that is banal as
well as obvious." Too obvious, perhaps, and too costly; for years,
the Vancouver Police Department has begged City Hall for more
resources to hire officers, and seldom gets what it wants.

Business owners have turned to private security firms for help. By
the mayor's own estimate, there are three private guards in Vancouver
for every city police officer. Even social activists worry about the
imbalance. Some predict that by 2010, the ratio will be 10:1.

Beefing up the ranks and spending heavily on public law enforcement
is simply not a top priority at city hall. Instead, Mayor Sullivan
talks about "a different allocation of resources ?We are asking
police to be more accountable. When they see clusters of crime begin
to appear, they should make note of it."

But Vancouverites already know where criminals are clustered. They
are most obvious in the Downtown Eastside, where an open drug and sex
market surrounds a large police station and a provincial courthouse.

Vancouver's worst stain is spreading. Putting more officers into the
streets and alleys will solve nothing, says Mayor Sullivan. As a city
councilor, he saw such efforts flop. "Three times while I was on
council we adopted that strategy, to send in more officers," he
notes. "It was a complete failure. It pushed the problems into other
neighbourhoods. I do not want to do that again."

Instead, he has pushed forward another anti-disorder initiative meant
to compliment Project Civil City. In January, Vancouver launched a
pilot project that enables Vancouver bylaw officers to issue and
serve tickets, on the spot, to people accused of urinating,
defecating, spitting and littering in public spaces.

Those issued tickets are presumed guilty and must either go to court
and dispute the charge within 14 days, or pay a fine.

According to a Project Civil City progress report released in March,
217 tickets had been issued since the pilot project started. Only 41
fines had been paid.

To some, this statistic might suggest the pilot project is a bust;
not to Mayor Sullivan. And he doesn't apologize that certain forms of
public disorder, such as public sex, are not officially of concern.
Visitors to one part of famous Stanley Park may stumble upon men
engaged in fellatio and intercourse; it is commonplace at night. Yet
cruising areas, littered with used condoms and cigarette butts, seem
sacrosanct.

According to one senior Vancouver police officer, public sex in
Stanley Park is "a gay issue" and therefore is not on his radar.

Adult theatres known to serve as brothels are not on the radar,
either, despite complaints from some sex trade workers that women,
desperate to earn drug money, are being harmed inside by clusters of men.

Mayor Sullivan seemed loathe to discuss the matter, and preferred to
emphasize the need to shelter and treat prostitutes, the homeless,
and those who may have a mental illness. He talked of his wish to
offer chemical "substitutions" to people addicted to illegal street
drugs such as heroin, crack cocaine, and crystal methamphetamine.

There is evidence, he claims, to support his belief that these
"solutions," while costly, would work. They can help combat disorder,
he says, by getting at the underlying roots. Vancouverites can hope,
because these are the solutions they might get.