IT'S TIME TO TAKE BACK OUR STREETS

Pack of Hardcore Drug Users Making Cormorant Street Neighbourhood Unlivable

Today, I stepped in a turd. What made it all the more disgusting was
that this was not a dog turd, but a big human turd. Going out the
back door of my office, after shooing away the junkie rooting for
bottles in my locked recycled-paper bin, I stepped in it.

As I cleaned this revolting mess off my shoe, wondering what exotic
diseases it contained, I questioned my move to the Cormorant Street
neighbourhood. I also thought of my conversation with my next-door
neighbour who, as he picked up human feces and other trash deposited
by the lawless band of junkies, asked, "For this I went to medical school?"

He and I looked around at the high barbed-wire fences sprouting up in
our heritage-zoned neighbourhood and shared the thought that it would
be sad to have to fence in our beautiful old brick houses.

My residential neighbour came by today to warn my staff to be
cautious throwing out the garbage and shredded paper because she had
seen the junkies poking something into the handles of the bins.

The junkies party on my back doorstep each night, chipping out the
bricks, digging up the flowerbed, and depositing their needles. My
neighbour phoned the police twice last night.

On her suggestion, I have removed the light bulb from my back door in
hope that they will find a source of light elsewhere to aid in their
search for veins.

There is a serious health issue here. Human feces and used syringes
can be dangerous to those coming into contact with them. It is at
least a hundred years since we stopped dumping our chamber pots in the streets.

Is Victoria reverting to this quaint old custom which led to
gentlemen walking on the outside of the sidewalk to spare their
ladies? Vancouver Island Health Authority is funding the needle
exchange for valid health reasons. What about the effluent that flows
from its users?

My truck has been vandalized twice in broad daylight while parked
behind my office -- once by the insertion of a hypodermic needle in
the sidewall of the tire, ruining the tire. On phoning the police it
was suggested I park elsewhere.

I complained about the needles and trash to city councillors, one of
whom told me I was "not following the proper protocol for safe
disposal of syringes."

Why will the city officials do nothing about this? Why can my
neighbours and I not have the protection of property, health and
safety other citizens of this community take for granted?

Instead, the mayor and council say they are powerless, that it is a
social problem, or that the senior governments should fund the solution.

Yes, the province and the feds have offloaded the problem and should
fund the solution, but so should the city act on it. It is this same
attitude that brings about penalties for the victims of graffiti
instead of increased efforts to eliminate vandalism.

Our downtown is sadly demonstrating the decay that results from the
abuses of a few outweighing the rights of the rest of us to live in a
safe and healthy city. It is costing us tourists, conventioneers and shoppers.

have publicly pointed this out as chairman of both Tourism Victoria
and the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority. I have also advocated the
need for treatment programs, facilities and shelters and I continue to do so.

The problem I am experiencing in the Cormorant Street neighbourhood
is not with the homeless. I have gotten to know my homeless
neighbours. I greet J. who lives in the alley and is trying to get
his life back on track; I chat with D. who has HIV and lacks the
energy to hold down a job just as I greet and visit with my
neighbours on the street where I live.

They cause me no harm. I am saddened by their plight and heartened by
their brave attitude.

The problem is the pack of 45 hard-core intravenous users who live in
a homeless tribal culture, migrating from the blue bridge to the
needle exchange and onward to my backyard to shoot up, defecate,
vandalize my property and disturb my residential neighbours.

The police have reported about them to city council. Yet they are
permitted to continue this behaviour, violating numerous laws
including criminal laws.

If I were to carry on in this way I expect I would be arrested. If my
dog were repeatedly to defecate on the doorstep of City Hall, action
would be taken. Why, then, is nothing being done to stop the lawless
activities of this tribe of urban nomads?

Why are my neighbours and I expected to clean up the disgusting
droppings of this "social problem," following "the proper protocol?"

Society needs to take responsibility for its problems and share the
burden. I know that you would not put up with this on your doorstep.

Neither will I.

I am listening closely to the statements of our civic, provincial,
and federal politicians. I am encouraging all my neighbours to appeal
their property assessments on the basis of the degradation of
property value from the lawlessness permitted by government.

In this way at least our high taxes might be lowered so we can afford
cleanup, security, and yes, maybe barbed-wire fences. Come election
time I will remember who said what. The hardcore tribe doesn't vote. We do.

After all, that is the proper protocol.