NEW SAFETY ACT TO BECOME LAW SOON

Early next month, neighbours will have one extra tool to help shut
down that aggravating crack house or prostitution ring next door.

The province's Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act will become
law early in the new year. It allows neighbours to report properties
being used for criminal purposes to a three-member provincial
investigation team, who will look into the claim.

If investigators find out that party house next door is actually
selling drugs, sex or illegal gambling, they'll have the power to
order the property owner or tenant to stop - or shut it down entirely.

"Members of the police could come in, arrest people in a house and
seize equipment, but they couldn't close it down," Justice Department
spokeswoman Carla Grant said yesterday.

"We will be able to close the property down so no other person could
use it (for illegal purposes)."

The province will spend $540,000 to set up a three-person
investigative unit for the act, an election promise Rodney
MacDonald's Tories made last summer. Investigators will have the
power to issue a community safety order first; if that isn't
followed, they'll ask the courts for an order to shut the property down.