POLICE TO FOCUS ON DRUG WOES

Crackdown Gets Mixed Reviews On the Downtown Eastside

Vancouver police are expected to announce today they will spend more
attention and resources dealing with the city's drug problem.

The crackdown, which follows weeks of lobbying city council to inject
millions of dollars into the police budget for the Downtown Eastside
cleanup plan, can't come soon enough for Craig Newman.

Two years ago, Newman moved here from the small town of Curve Lake near
Peterborough, Ont., via Toronto and was shocked at the state of the
Downtown Eastside.

"Contrary to what people believe, Toronto isn't bad. Toronto isn't anything
like this," he said.

Newman thinks it's about time people stopped talking and tried to clean up
the drug problem.

"If they're going to do it, do it," he said "Get off your high horses and
do it.

"This has been going on for years. Why in the hell didn't they do this a
long time ago?"

Despite his apparent enthusiasm for the project, he isn't sure it will work.

"It's got a 50-50 chance," Newman said. "These people need help."

But crack smoker and former heroin addict Momo Belkacem says the police
action will just diffuse the problem to other parts of the Lower Mainland.

"There was an area like this in Paris where there were people who used
drugs or you could buy [drugs], but for political reasons they bring in
police and they stayed a month in the same area. No more dealing.

"What happened after? In all the streets, all the neighbourhoods, all of
Paris, there were dealers. They had no control," he said.

"This country, this city, they are smart. They keep it in this area, they
can control it, they can get real statistics. That's smart."

Belkacem wants to see money invested in "security" -- safe places for
people to smoke crack and do heroin.

While the police department's request for extra money for the cleanup has
not officially been rejected, several city councillors have said the
$4-million proposal is too expensive and the money could be better spent on
other priorities in the Downtown Eastside.

A few months ago, police intensified their presence in front of the
Carnegie Centre at the corner of Main and Hastings. Critics say the move
did not disperse the drug market, but merely pushed it west down the hill
toward the corner of Columbia and Hastings.

The shift exacerbated problems for the Army & Navy store on East Hastings,
which has to have a security guard watching the front door, making sure
loiterers don't block the main entrance.

The chain's owner, Jacqui Cohen, has been a vocal proponent of cleaning up
the Downtown Eastside.

Gary Lo, the store manager working on Sunday morning, agrees and is
cautiously hopeful the crackdown will work. He says he wants the drug
problem alleviated so there can be real investment in the area, and not
social housing.

"We have enough of that already," he said.