CRACK RING'S SMASHED, BUT IT'S A HOLLOW VICTORY

A Year After Police Shut Down A Notorious Drug Clan, It's Business As Usual
In Victory Square

'This guy's a crack dealer. And that guy's a crack dealer." One of the two
men on the receiving end of Lisa Sven's venom slips off the sidewalk,
walking into the traffic on West Hastings in Vancouver. The other --
unshaven, dirty tracksuit and rotting teeth -- confronts the Victory Cafe
owner before sliding his hands into his pockets and slinking away.

"Lady, you ever seen me before? You know me?" Sven turns her back. It
doesn't matter. Crack addicts and dealers come and go. After a while all
you see is the drug. And around Victory Square these days, the sight of
crack starts to obliterate everything else.

People like Sven can be forgiven for feeling they're in danger of losing
the battle for this patch of earth.

"I came here wanting to be one of the cogs in the wheel motivating this
neighbourhood in a different direction," says Sven. "It's been too much
work. I've lost a lot of money and the city could care less. I get nothing
but sand kicked in my face."

Last Friday, a B.C. Supreme Court judge sentenced the last of four Nova
Scotian relatives -- all by the name of Seymour -- who controlled Victory
Square's crack-cocaine market for five years. Seven co-accused still face
trial in January.

Earl Stephen Seymour was originally charged with 21 counts, including being
a member of a criminal gang. As part of a plea bargain, he will serve
little more than six years for cocaine trafficking, possession of marijuana
for the purpose of trafficking and one charge of arson, an attempt to
firebomb the home of the grandparents of one of the RCMP officers who
arrested him.

The Crown stayed the other counts.

A year after a joint investigation by Nova Scotia and Vancouver RCMP shut
the operation down, even police admit that it's business as usual in
Victory Square. That is if your business happens to be dealing in crack
cocaine. "A massive sting?" Sven laughs as she surveys the street. "It was
a little prick that didn't do anything."

The statement of fact in the case against Earl Stephen Seymour reads like a
Drug Dealing for Dummies handbook. Run out of the now-defunct Stadium Inn,
the ring sent street-level dealers to work from morning to night. Paired
with the dealers would be people "keeping six" -- watching out for police.

At the end of a shift, the crews returned to the Inn with the day's
take. Dealers earned $250 a day, and watchers made $80. The operation made
about $10,000 a day in profit. And on Welfare Wednesday, the day welfare
cheques were issued, profits rose to $20,000.

When police raided Seymour's home in the Nova Scotia hamlet of Bible Hill,
they seized assets attributed to the sale of drugs: Two new Harley Davidson
choppers; a Corvette; the house itself, and $269,875 in cash.

Six years in prison -- probably less with time off for good behaviour. It's
a joke, says Cabbages and Kinx funky-clothing store owner Stephen Lippold.
He's seen firsthand the damage done by the likes of Earl Stephen Seymour.

"I don't see it going away. I see it growing like a cancer," says Lippold
as he stands opposite the cenotaph. "Talk about terrorism. We're terrorized
- -- our community is terrorized by drugs."

During the drug ring's operation, the Stadium Inn was a hive of illicit
activity. Neighbours above Sven's restaurant could peer out their windows
straight into filthy rooms filled with dealers and addicts. The characters
walking in and out of the attached pub looked like extras from a horror movie.

The police bust provided a brief respite, but the truth is that the Seymour
gang was likely only one of a dozen in the area. The others were only too
happy to fill the void.

An hour-long conversation turns frequently to those who've abandoned the
area. Businesses that closed their doors. Employees sick of dealing with
the hassle.

One woman who was vigilant in shooing crackheads from her doorstep
ultimately crossed the wrong guy -- he started stalking her. Police
arrested him, but the woman told Sven that after a decade of putting up
with a bottomless problem, she didn't need the hassle. She moved to Sooke.

Lippold says he's also gotten into fights with dealers. He's unapologetic.

"I punch them out -- I throw them out of my store. You're just left with
frustration."

The city's apparent disinterest in the fate of Victory Square is what irks
merchants most. They view the much crowed-about Vancouver Agreement -- in
which three levels of government pledged to work together to combat the
drug problem -- as little more than a publicity stunt.

Police resources are strapped, and officers complain privately of the
onerous burden that myriad regulations and rights challenges place on them
in making arrests.

The Vancouver Film School, with three locations in a three-block radius of
Victory Square, places 24-hour-a-day private security to watch out for
students. It's blunt evidence that enforcement works.

"Having a presence out on the street does make a difference," says
spokeswoman Ruth Atherley.

"But the truth of the matter is that you help one block and they move to
another street."

On Thursday afternoon, student Beata Kacy hunkered down in the grass just
above the memorial to film some dying autumn leaves as part of a project.
And then something far more interesting caught her eye -- on the benches
beside Mainland, a number of police officers were making an arrest.

Kacy comes from Poland. She's travelled the world.

"I've never seen such a place as East Hastings," she says. "I think Canada
should be more strict. Especially with kids: They don't really know what
they're doing."

Paolo Pela is property manager for two Victory Square buildings -- the old
Daily Province and the Leckie. Like everyone who has a stake in the area,
he's passionate about a need for change.

"The city has an inconsistent policy. On the one hand, they want to improve
the area and on the other hand, they are building needle exchanges and
conserving these (single-room-occupancy hotels). The city is creating a
ghetto there," he says. "A very civilized way of life would be having a
little bit of poor people in Shaughnessy and a little bit of Shaughnessy in
Victory Square. You don't build a ghetto."

After police busted the Seymour family operation, the Stadium Inn shut its
doors. New business owners have renamed the hotel and pub, renovated and
taken great pains to erase its reputation and keep dealers away. So
damaging is the association that they asked not to be mentioned as part of
this story.

Pela applauds their efforts -- proof owners and landlords have a role in
the neighbourhood. That turning a blind eye to the activities in a building
is not acceptable.

"The people that own these hotels are making good money," he says.

"The poor people that are there are paying their money with welfare
cheques. Nobody has spent a penny on these units. The yield of the dollar
invested in the real estate is very high. A good landlord considers a
building like a fortress. And you have to protect yourself."

Sven's solutions for the problem are simple. Enforce the laws. Balance
social housing with market housing and move treatment centres away from the
Downtown Eastside. And though she isn't opposed to pot, Sven thinks the
last thing the area needs is the proliferation of stores selling drug
paraphernalia. She feels they lure naive kids bent on rebellion to the
streets, where one-stop dealers are happy to sell them pot and give them
their first taste of hard drugs.

Lippold believes the only solution is in taking draconian enforcement
measures, similar to those that rid New York of its crack plague in the
early 1990s. The periodic crackdowns making headlines are not enough.

The public sees evidence of vigilance, but the pressure dies down after a
few days.

"I'd like to see some heat on the street. Some real containment. If it
takes a cop on the corner 24 hours a day. It doesn't seem like any lines
have been drawn," he says.

"It's almost as if the streets belong to the criminals and if you don't
like it -- tough luck."

Tired and emotionally drained, Sven doubts she'll renew when her lease runs
out in December 2002. By then, Earl Stephen Seymour will be well on his
way to earning parole for running a business on the same turf which made
him far more money for far less effort.

"When you walk these streets and see the damage done by drugs -- these
people are the cause of that, and if that's all they get, that's not
justice," Sven sighs.

"But then we don't have justice."