CRACKDOWN TARGETS DRUG DEALERS

Police Strength Tripled In The Downtown Eastside

Vancouver police on horseback, motorcycles and foot patrol launched an
unprecedented block-by-block campaign Monday to rid city streets of drug
dealers.

Chief Constable Jamie Graham has tripled the number of officers on the
street in an around-the-clock crackdown aimed squarely at the drug-plagued
Downtown Eastside.

Graham has gone ahead with his get-tough initiative as a three-month pilot
program, and asked city council for $2.3 million to extend the campaign for
another six months. Councillors are expected to vote today on the request.

Asked about the crackdown, Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell said enforcement
is an essential element of the city's four-pillar plan to cleanup the drug
problem.

"No doubt it's an experiment and if it doesn't work, we'll stop it," he said.

Sergeant Geramy Field, one of four mounted squad officers patrolling the
area on horseback, said law-abiding people in the area are glad to see the
increased police presence.

"The ones with the criminal records know why we're down there. We're giving
them reasons why they should go home and stop selling."

Field, who was reassigned to the area from patrolling Stanley Park, said
the increased police presence is meant to reassure residents that something
is being done to protect their property and neighbourhood.

Police have increased the number of police officers patrolling the area to
60 from the 20 who were responsible for the Downtown Eastside.

"The main goals are to reduce the high order of disorder in the Downtown
Eastside and restore order to a community in distress," said Inspector Doug
LePard, the officer in charge. "It is not to target the addicted drug user."

Graham said police are using the stepped-up enforcement efforts as a pilot
for three months and will gauge in two months whether they are being
successful in cleaning up the area.

Graham said he understands the "fiscal constraints" faced by council, but
he vowed the department will continue to do what it can to rid the area of
drug dealers.

"This will disrupt what we think is a blight on this particular city and
this wonderful neighbourhood," he said.

"People are shocked when they drive by there and constantly say, 'How can
you allow this to happen?' We will do our very best to ensure it stops."

Part of what police are doing will result in dispersal of drug dealers who
now congregate within a two-block radius of the intersection of Hastings
and Carrall, Graham said. But he said many drug users have left the city
and province entirely.

"We're optimistic of the results and keep very careful statistics. There
will be certain disruption and we will continue disrupting until we see
results," Graham said.

Albert Fok, chairman of the Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association, said
increased police presence has been needed in the area for years.

"For a long time we've been hurt by the feeling that you can't walk down
Hastings," he said. "Hopefully this move will grant the opportunity for
people to feel more comfortable again around here."

Among people who have been intimately involved in Downtown Eastside life
for years, the reaction to the police activity ranged from worry to outrage.

Michael Clague, director of the Carnegie Centre, said the police moves to
clear drug dealers from the corner of Main and Hastings has been beneficial.

Although there hasn't been a huge increase in numbers at the heavily used
centre, which sees as many as 2,000 visitors a day, he said that having an
entrance that wasn't blocked by a busy open drug market brought back some
people who hadn't been seen for a while. Younger people with families and
seniors are two groups that have reappeared, and evening drop-in programs
have seen a slight increase in attendance.

"I didn't realize how much we were living under siege," Clague said. "It's
lightened things up and made a big difference to us."

The open drug market moved to the corner of Main and Hastings in the mid
1990s, when the open drug scene generally expanded as crack cocaine, which
requires much more frequent buys, became popular and as police forced
drug-dealing out of the local bars.

But Clague, like many people, said he is concerned about what the impact of
the police action will be when there has been little coordination with
other agencies. He said he would have been much more confident about the
success of the plan if there had been a joint announcement about a plan
that emphasized all four pillars of the city's official drug strategy.

"If there had been people from the police, from health, from the city
announcing together, 'This is the plan for detox, this is the plan for a
safe-injection site and the police enforcement will follow step by step,' I
would have preferred that."

Instead, he said, police are acting unilaterally in advance of any
coordinated strategy for treatment, harm reduction and prevention.

Downtown Eastside activist Ann Livingston was much harsher in her criticism
of the plan as she walked Hastings Street Monday afternoon. She said it
appeared the police were deliberately defying the wishes of Vancouver
citizens who voted in the last election in favour of a political group that
campaigned on a harm-reduction approach to tackling Vancouver's drug problems.

"The police are just ... in your face -- we don't care what the people of
Vancouver voted for," said Livingston. "It's just an unbelievable power pull."

Livingston said she can't see how the police plan is going to work, because
she hasn't ever met an addict or a dealer who would quit using or dealing
just because of an increased police presence.

Law students from the Pivot Legal Society were also out on the street
Monday, handing out "rights" cards to locals, which have a printed list of
pointers for people on what to do if they are stopped by police.

Katrina Pacey said Pivot volunteers -- about about 100 lawyers, law
students and others -- are concerned about the police action because they
see two negative consequences.

First, there are already numerous problems with police harassing anyone
they perceive to be a drug user, so "more officers means more human-rights
violations," she said.

Second, she said, the police action makes putting a balanced, four-pillar
approach to drug addiction in place more difficult. If more money goes into
policing, that's less for treatment, prevention or harm reduction, she
said. As well, if police are cracking down on street activity, that will
make it harder for addicts to access local services.

Problems are being created beyond the areas of Hastings and Carrall because
of the increased number of drug sellers and drug users, said Charles
Gauthier, executive director of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement
Association.

"Our members are concerned about the extent of the drug use and enforcement
has been viewed as an effective tool in controlling it," Gauthier said.
"Enforcement does provide an immediate and desirable result, which is to
have them leave the area."

The DVBIA represents businesses in the area bounded on the east by Hamilton
Street and Gauthier said members are already reporting that drug dealers
and users are leaving the Downtown Eastside and moving west.

"If we see a flood of dealers, I can assure you we'll be expressing a lot
of concern," he said.

There is a real concern that dispersing drug dealers to other parts of the
city will solve the problem in the Downtown Eastside, but create new
problems in surrounding municipalities, said Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan.

"Everybody who lives next door to a crackdown is worried it's going to
shift to their community," he said. "A crackdown in Vancouver will push
people to a neighbouring community. If it's an enforcement issue and more
incarceration, that will be more internal for Vancouver. If it's just
pushing them out, it's going to be a problem in Burnaby."