POLICE DENY BEING ASKED TO STOP 'BOTHERING' DRUG USERS, DEALERS

An Anti-drug Community Group Is Pressing For A Crackdown On Drug Use, And
Curbs On Addict Services.

An anti-drug community group issued a press release Thursday claiming that
Vancouver's Carnegie Centre staff have asked police officers to stop
"bothering" drug users and dealers in front of the centre and police agreed.

But police, a community-police representative, and city staff say the
Community Alliance group has its facts wrong.

Alliance co-chairman Bryce Rositch, an architect with a practice in
Gastown, said the police policy sends "the message to every addict in
Canada, and to the drug dealers who supply them, to come on down to Main
and Hastings."

The Community Alliance is a group of business operators and residents in
Gastown, Chinatown, Strathcona and Victory Square who have formed a
coalition to campaign for more enforcement and a moratorium on new services
for drug addicts.

Others say the group's information is wrong, a twisting of events at a
meeting of police officers and community-policing representatives last week.

"In terms of dealers, I'm sorry, we arrest dealers. Drug dealers deal in
death and we do not give them one inch," said Constable Gary Greer,
Vancouver's deputy police chief, who said the claim that police are
refusing to make arrests on the corner is completely wrong.

Eileen Mosca, co-chairwoman of the community policing advisory committee,
said the Alliance allegation is "completely and utterly inaccurate."

She said one police officer at the meeting mentioned that Carnegie staff
have asked police not to be "aggressive" in their arrests but, when Mosca
asked whether centre staff are allowed to dictate policy, she was told
police will always listen but will make the final decision on enforcement.

Centre executive director Michael Clague said the Alliance seems to have
misunderstood an agreement that has existed for some months that is meant
to allow centre staff who provide health information and activities for
users to do so without users being scared off by constant police presence.

As well, Clague said, "we have an understanding with them that a practice
of persistent dispersal moves drug activity into surrounding neighbourhoods."

He said police have done at least two major sweeps at the corner in the
past three weeks.