NO ONE'S CLAIMING SUCCESS YET IN FIGHT AGAINST CRIME

There is much more to be done, Mayor Philip Owen tells a comprehensive
community forum on crime.

It's not often a municipal politician will stand up and say this
year's 25-per-cent reduction in the over-all crime rate isn't great
news.

But that was Mayor Philip Owen's spin Friday -- "It's just a small
thing," he said -- as he kicked off another community forum sponsored
by the city's blue-ribbon Coalition for Crime Prevention, a
cornerstone of the celebrated $5 million Vancouver Agreement.

With the main plank in his re-election platform personal safety, and
the drop in crime largely the result of measures implemented by fired
police chief Bruce Chambers, Owen doesn't want to focus on statistical
success.

"There is much more to be done," he told the forum sponsored by the
60-member coalition -- everyone from the city and police department to
the Rotary Club and the Canadian Bankers Association.

The coalition received the funding from the National Crime Prevention
Council for the Downtown Eastside revitalization program that aims to
reduce crime and improve social conditions by coordinating the
delivery of federal, provincial and civic resources, which has proven
difficult.

The money will be spent over the next five years to develop a model
for banishing urban blight via events such as the forum, which
attracted more than 100 civic leaders, drug users, police,
politicians, social workers and bureaucrats from the three levels of
government. Still, many activists believe more action and less talk is
needed.

For instance, nearly a year ago Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh said he
thought it would be a good idea to establish drug courts, which have
proved successful in the U.S. and in a pilot program in Toronto, in
combatting recidivism among addicts.

After visiting the Toronto experiment in February, I said it would
take more than a year to get a B.C. drug court operating because a
raft of treatment services must be in place. That infrastructure is
still missing, Dosanjh acknowledged Friday, but he still believes drug
courts will be part of the solution.

Also, the long-promised action to curb the sale of cheap rice liquor
from grocery stores has not materialized. Dosanjh said, however, that
a press release is being prepared and the high-alcohol-content product
will begin disappearing from the shelves in December.

Similarly, a much-needed, and oft-promised city sobering centre has
yet to materialize, although the mayor said he remained hopeful that
an announcement is imminent.

The main measure the city has employed to tackle the problems so far
is more police enforcement, and that has had mixed results.

While crime has gone down, acting police chief Terry Blythe said his
force has pushed part of the problem from the Downtown Eastside into
other neighbourhoods such as Grandview. He said the displacement and
other downsides should be seen as growing pains as police and the city
learn about the complexity of these interrelated issues.

He pointed out that most of those arrested for drug and other crimes
come from outside the city. While suburban courts are ordering drug
dealers banned from certain areas, including SkyTrain stations, judges
in Vancouver are reluctant to issue such no-go orders and they migrate
to city stops.

SkyTrain has become a veritable drug delivery system, with stations
being openly used by dealers, so Blythe said city police are talking
with transit security to try and tackle that development.

And the mayor emphasized that although there may be complaints about
the pace of progress, everyone should keep in mind that the city has
been forced to take the initiative because Ottawa and Victoria aren't
doing their job.

"We are not by law to be involved in health, education and social
services," Owen emphasized. "Those are the responsibilities of the
senior governments. We're involved because they cut back.

"There are no easy answers to this. You know we have a needle exchange
program in this city that gives away 2.5 million needles a year, but
we don't have treatment services. We can't talk about federal pilot
heroin maintenance programs or shooting galleries -- which are on the
table -- until we have all the treatment options in place. We're not
there yet."

As the broad attendance at the forum indicates, though, we are going
down the road.