HEROIN PLAN GETS OK

RESIDENTS, business owners and Premier Steve Bracks have backed a
radical police plan to ban heroin addicts and dealers from Footscray.

Under the crackdown, magistrates would be asked to place convicted
addicts and dealers from outside the area on orders banning them from
the City of Maribyrnong.

Although critics said the problem would just be shifted elsewhere,
locals said they had been putting up with the heroin trade for many
years and it was time they got some relief.

Every Footscray business owner contacted by the Herald Sun yesterday
backed the scheme, dubbed Project Reduction.

Footscray Auto Care manager Alan Marshall said so many other
initiatives had failed, it was time to try something different.

"I've been stepping over them (addicts) for years. They've got to
give it a go," Mr Marshall said.

Footscray Halal Meats manager Julian Bayratar he did not like
bringing his son into work because of what he might see.

Six other local business operators and residents contacted backed
Project Reduction, which will begin tomorrow.

Mr Bracks said he supported the program: "It deserves a go to see if
that dispersement can have an effect. It deserves a go."

City of Maribyrnong Mayor Janet Rice said she was disappointed the
council did not know of the plan until yesterday.

Cr Rice said the council and relevant health and social agencies
should have known so a more comprehensive strategy could be put into place.

"We're surprised the police didn't tell us about it before we read it
in the Herald Sun this morning," she said.

"Questioning people in the street and banning people from our city is
just going to move the problem somewhere else."