STING NETS DRUGS AT CLUBS

Victoria Police Round Up Dealers After 11-Day Undercover
Operation

Undercover police had no problem buying cocaine and ecstasy at five
downtown Victoria clubs in a recent sting operation. They were even
directed to drug dealers by bouncers and bar staff.

Police rounded up dealers Friday afternoon after an 11-day undercover
operation resulted in warrants for the arrest of 16 people, including
one bar employee, for trafficking in controlled substances, said Sgt.
Les Sylven of Victoria police, the project co-ordinator. "Our
operators, pretty much every time they walked into a bar, they were
walking out with cocaine or ecstasy," Sylven said.

In many cases, bar staff were either turning a blind eye or abetting
the deals, he said. "We've had the whole gamut, from a couple of
transactions that occurred in dark corners underneath tables that
perhaps the staff didn't observe, to some that were in plain view of
staff, up to and including one of our targets was an employee who was
doing the drug transactions with one of our undercover officers,"
Sylven said.

"We also had on other occasions, doormen and bouncers in the licensed
establishments looking for and trying to help our (undercover)
operators out, trying to line up deals for them."

Police saw liquor infractions ranging from over-service and
overcrowding to staff openly drinking with patrons, he said. They also
saw patrons doing lines of cocaine inside clubs.

Using officers from Vancouver, Abbotsford and Delta police departments
along with Victoria officers, police began simply by trying to buy
small amounts of drugs in select clubs that have been the source of a
number of closing-time calls.

By the end of the 11 days, they had not only been able to make several
quarter- and half-ounce buys, totalling several ounces of cocaine and
hundreds of tablets of ecstasy, but were negotiating to buy a kilo of
cocaine, Sylven said.

He said the officers bought illegal drugs inside five bars: The Red
Jacket, the Boom Boom Room, Legends, Monty's and The Evolution. Had
the operation continued, officers very likely would have been able to
buy drugs easily in four or five other downtown bars, he said.

These bars were chosen for the operation because they are the ones
that repeatedly have had police calls at closing time, he said.

"Based on what I see and what other officers see, these
cocaine-fuelled, alcohol-fuelled assaults and violence is the greatest
concern for me right now."

Sgt. Jim Simpson, police liquor portfolio co-ordinator, plans to meet
liquor licensing officials Tuesday to discuss what actions could be
taken against a number of establishments.

They were looking for illegal drugs, undercover police couldn't help
but notice a number of establishments blatantly breaching the Liquor
Act and staff and patrons violating CRD bylaws prohibiting smoking
indoors.

"I'll be getting together with them to go over how we're going to
proceed on the Liquor Act infractions. How we're going to deal with
the people with respect to the bouncers being complicit -- basically
steering the undercover operators."

Any action, such as shutting down establishments, will be up to the
Liquor Control and Licensing Branch, he said.

"They have rules of evidence the same as the courts do. We'll go
through each file with them on Tuesday and make sure the rules of
evidence are satisfactory to proceed with the Liquor Act charges. The
CRD has already agreed to proceed with the issues with the staff and
patrons smoking in the bars," Simpson said.

Sylven promised this police operation is just the beginning.

"We're going to continue with efforts like this -- sometimes covert
like this undercover operation, and other times, we've got some
strategies lined up for the New Year for more of a uniformed presence
in the bars. We want to tighten things up," he said.