DRUG USERS GROUP WINS RIGHT TO BE HEARD IN COURT

A lawsuit intended to force the closure of a unique contact centre for drug
users was itself forced to a temporary halt Thursday when a Supreme Court
judge said a group representing the drug users should be allowed to make
legal arguments in the case.

That means the hearing will be delayed at least two or three months, lawyers
said, since it will have to be rescheduled and everyone given time to
prepare for the new arguments that will be presented.

"Smokin! Well, well, well, do we have some clout in the neighbourhood now,"
was the reaction in the courtroom from a jubilant Dean Wilson, the president
of the group that won intervenor status, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug
Users.

On the other side, Richard Lee of the Community Alliance, the group that
filed the lawsuit, was disappointed.

"That's a skirmish, but the battle is still to come."

The original lawsuit filed by the Community Alliance, a group of business
owners and residents in the neighbourhoods around Main and Hastings, asked
the court to quash a development permit that the city of Vancouver gave to
the then Vancouver/Richmond health board to create a contact centre on the
ground floor of the Roosevelt Hotel near Main and Hastings.

The centre, the first of its kind in Canada, opened Dec. 21 and provides a
place primarily geared to drug users, where they can drop in, get basic
health services, or take part in community-centre-type activities put on by
staff from the neighbouring Carnegie Centre.

It is one part of a much larger health board plan to provide improved health
services for drug users as a way of trying to reduce the epidemic disease
rates, overdose deaths, and escalating addiction rates in the area.

Since the Alliance was created two years ago, it has opposed any "enabling"
services for drug users in the neighbourhood, but its lawsuit focused only
on the much narrower issue of whether the city violated its own bylaws.

The group's lawyer, Jonathan Baker, told the court Thursday the city's
official community plan for the area says there is supposed to be
"continuous retail" development in that part of Hastings.

Since a contact centre isn't retail, the city violated its zoning
requirements.

But Baker didn't get to present that argument in full because a judge first
had to decide whether to grant the drug-user group's petition to join the
case.

Baker opposed the application, saying VANDU would turn the case into a much
broader debate about whether the contact centre was a needed service or not.

"We don't want to deal with the issues our friend raises. We do not care or
want to deal with the unique perspective of the users of this service," said
Baker. Instead, he said, the case should focus solely on the question of
whether the city adhered to its own zoning bylaw.