GROUP PROTESTS MORATORIUM ON DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE PROJECTS

Protesters carrying a makeshift coffin peacefully took over Vancouver council chambers Tuesday, demanding that councillors end the 90-day moratorium on new plans for services, housing or resources in the Downtown Eastside.

"It's not the time for inaction, it's time for action," said Dean Wilson of the Vancouver Area Drug Users Network, a group that has sprung up in the last two years to speak for Vancover's drug addicts.

He was allowed to speak, at the suggestion of councillor Tim Louis, after about 40 VANDU supporters pushed their way past a security guard into council chambers.

The group also planted 90 wooden crosses on the city hall lawn, saying they represent the people likely to die - at a rate of one overdose death a day - while the city stalls.

Although Wilson and others especially protested city council's decision to delay the opening of a planned new Powell Street resource centre for drug users, city manager Judy Rogers said that the moratorium doesn't affect the centre since it already has its city approvals in place.

Mayor Philip Owen announced the moratorium in early August after a group of Gastown, Strathcona and Chinatown community and business leaders - including some who have been long-time organizers in the city's ruling political party - formed a coalition to demand the city stop providing services for drug users when they aren't being accompanied by any treatment facilities.