POLICE HUNT FOR COCAINE LEAVES RESTAURATEUR PUZZLED

Search Warrant Named Caribbean-Food Cook Who Wasn't Working At The
Time

First, they came looking for guns. Then, two days later, they came for cocaine.

And the only thing police have taken from the West End Caribbean restaurant
is one gram of marijuana.

"They want to shut me down," said Tracey Gooden, the owner of the tiny
restaurant on Merivale Road, which has been raided twice by police in less
than a year. "I work hard. I pay my taxes. ... I pay these people and
they're terrorizing me."

Yesterday, the staff at the restaurant, known for its oxtail and curried
goat, were picking up pots and pans and mopping the flour-coated floor
after the Ottawa police drug squad tore through the year-old establishment
the day before.

They left behind holes in the wall and hundreds of sugar packets scattered
on the ground.

A copy of the search warrant shows police were hunting for cocaine
allegedly being sold by Michael McPherson, a 35-year-old cook who wasn't at
the restaurant when police stormed in.

Acting Staff Sgt. Pete Gauthier, of the drug unit, said the search was
based on a tip that drugs may be on the premises.

Mr. McPherson says he doesn't sell cocaine and can't understand why police
would target his workplace. "It's crazy, man. Crazy," he said.

He says he was playing in a soccer game when the officers and the drug dogs
scoured the restaurant. The lone gram of pot belonged to another cook,
Clive Watkis.

"If it was my name on the warrant, why didn't they come and get me?" Mr.
McPherson said, yesterday. "I drive. I have a licence. They could find out
where I live."

In January, police raided the restaurant looking for firearms, ammunition
and spent casings. Again, they found nothing, the store owner says.

It's the second black-owned establishment in Ottawa that has raised
questions about the way police conduct themselves during arrests.

The owners of the Ambassador Bar and Grill complained of racial profiling
after the pair and their black friends were arrested on Jan. 27, but the
lone white man in the restaurant wasn't handcuffed. No one arrested at the
Ambassador was ever charged. Police and the restaurateurs have been working
on a resolution.

Yesterday at the West End, customers were turned away all day. "You're
looking for food? I'm sorry ... " Lance Wilson, a cook, told a customer who
phoned in around 6 p.m.

A lonely Jamaican beef patty sat by itself in a glass case and a Jamaican
flag featuring reggae legend Bob Marley's picture and the words "Freedom,"
hung on the wall.

"The first time, I thought 'Oh, they're just doing their job' but now,
after what happened at the Ambassador, I've got some thinking to do," said
Ms. Gooden, who immigrated to Canada in 1996 from Jamaica and also works
full time as a nurse.

She said she has yet to decide whether or not she'll file a formal complaint.