ANGELS IN THE IN-BOX

Guardian Angel boss returns to Vancouver after 20-year absence hoping
for a warmer welcome from civic leaders, as Mayor Sullivan mulls a
plan to get tough on small crime.

Guardian Angels' founder Curtis Sliwa returned to Vancouver last
weekend, hoping to be part of the solution to downtown's drug and
crime problem.

The leader of the New York-headquartered citizens' crime fighting
patrols, recognizable in their trademark red berets and jackets, wants
the Guardian Angels to make a Vancouver comeback this year after
failing in the 1980s because of a lack of civic and police
co-operation.

"Local officials didn't want anything to do with us, like we were in a
leper colony," Sliwa told BIV in an exclusive interview in New York.
"The mayor, the police chiefa=80"no one would have anything to do with
us."

The original Vancouver chapter trained at Stanley Park and patrolled
the Downtown Eastside, Granville Mall and Davie Street. It eventually
disbanded because of lack of support.

Sliwa said he has received a steady stream of e-mails from
Vancouverites in recent years fed up with the city's decline.
"[Vancouverites continue to complain of] attacks on bus drivers,
people on the SkyTrain, definitely the East End, and more of the
American-style problems that transpired in New York that motivated me
to start the group," he said.

Sliwa planned to meet with VPD Insp. John McKay, because he said
Guardian Angels' patrols are needed to help restore order, because
politicians and police haven't done a good job.

"Let us organize, train, recruit," he said. "Let us do it in
co-operation with the police and let us prove that we can do what we
have been able to do in many of the 60 cities in the world, now with
police and elected officials' co-operation."

VPD media relations Const. Howard Chow declined to act on a BIV
request for an interview with Chief Jamie Graham.

He said police are aware of the Guardian Angels' intent to
re-establish a Vancouver chapter and welcome "more eyes and ears out
there," but civilians should report crime to police instead of taking
the law into their own hands.

The Guardian Angels could have a better reception this time, because
Mayor Sam Sullivan wants to get tough with panhandling, sidewalk
camping, jaywalking and litter. Elected last November, Sullivan said
there has been a vacuum at city hall where "disorder issues have been
ignored."

Sullivan said there could be a way to adapt some of the techniques and
ideas of the Guardian Angels into the city's community policing system.

Vancouver's claim to being one of the world's most livable cities was
recently questioned in The Economist because of the problems on the
Downtown Eastside.

Sliwa, who hosts a morning drive radio show on New York's WABC AM,
recently set up chapters in Toronto and Calgary. Toronto officials
have offered no help, but he's pleased with the reception in Calgary,
where he was shocked by a style of open drug dealing and drug use that
he hadn't witnessed in New York since the 1980s.

"People tell me that's what they've seen in Vancouver," he said. "A
lot of people doing this really don't have an excuse whatsoever. They
like committing crime, they like using drugs and if you create a
tolerant atmosphere they're going to flock there."

The Guardian Angels began when Sliwa was working as a McDonald's night
manager in the Bronx in 1978. He formed the first 13-person volunteer,
weapon-free patrol of the surrounding neighbourhood and the notorious
No. 4 subway line.

The Guardian Angels were lauded by New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as
part of his successful 1990s plan to clean up Manhattan, including
Times Square, once a notorious district of smut and
prostitution.

The Guardian Angels' annual fundraising dinner is attended by some of
the city's business and media elite who donate and fundraise for the
organization.

New York's Guardian Angels spend most of their time patrolling
Brooklyn and Bronx housing projects, and work with civic harm
prevention and anti-violence programs in schools. Chapters now operate
worldwide in Australia, South Africa, Brazil and Japan.