SEYMOUR PRIVATE PATROLS CLEAR OUT DRUG DEALERS

Problem Shifts To Other Parts Of Downtown

VANCOUVER - Private patrols along Seymour Street between Pender and Georgia
have cleaned the street of drug dealers, but moved the problem to other
parts of downtown Vancouver.

"There are clearly far fewer foreign-national drug traffickers up the two
blocks that they're working," said Dave Jones of the Downtown Vancouver
Business Improvement Association. "Some of those people have shown up on
Richards Street and further south around Emery Barnes Park, but we'll have
to see how this settles out."

Genesis Security has been patrolling the neighbourhood free of charge since
Wednesday as a pilot project to test effectiveness of the service. Guards
have been patrolling in eight-hour shifts during the day to keep the
regular drug dealers "on the run," said Jesse Johl of Genesis.

"They're trying to catch the waking hours of drug traffickers and drug
users, which tends to be before noon," said Jones, who has been kept up to
date by Johl and the DVBIA downtown ambassadors.

To remove the drug dealers, Johl and another security guard have confronted
them, telling them "what they're doing is not appreciated, and they move
along," Johl said.

"Ninety per cent of them are shocked that someone has stopped them, but
it's about business, and if what we're doing is disrupting their business,
they leave."

"I've watched them follow undesirables until they remove themselves from
this block," said Igor Kivritsky of the Hi-Fi Centre. "They will stand
there and make it impossible for that person to be here."

Vancouver Const. Tim Fanning said it is too early to tell how the added
security has affected the drug activity in the downtown area, but he said
if the drug problem had moved, it likely also dispersed the problem as
well. "It helps to break down the numbers, so they'll move on somewhere
else, but you'll lose a few who might get tired of being pushed around," he
said.

Johl will meeting with landlords and merchants later this week to discuss
the future of the street patrol. He said cost of the service is still an
issue with merchants, but said the cost per business will be lower if more
merchants get involved.

But Kivritsky said: "It's not really fair for a few of the merchants to pay
for it and for everyone to get the benefit. Everyone should be on board
with this thing, but if we don't do it, things are going to go back to
exactly the way they were. Nothing's going to change."