UPROAR ON SPADINA AVENUE

246 - Number of times police have responded to calls at 155 Spadina
Ave.

15 - Number of categories of alleged criminal activity associated with
the house.

6,000 - Number of pages of material Ottawa police have to support the
seizure of the property.

This end of Spadina Avenue does not lend itself to
secrets.

Lots are narrow, with rear driveways, and the houses are of a type-
three floors, red-brick, two-storey porches-so close together,
neighbours can almost shake hands through facing windows.

So, there was no hiding the life of 155.

Since the early 1990s, police say they have responded to 246 calls to
this house, the second door north of the urban canyon that is the Queensway.

Now the walls are starting to talk.

In 17 binders filed with a court application, the Ottawa Police have
compiled 6,000 pages of material in support of the seizure of the
house from its rightful owner, a Cornwall grandmother who has never
lived there. She says she will fight the attempt to take her property.

Her investment, worth an estimated $350,000, may simply be yanked
away, with zero compensation.

It is a drastic measure. But, on this sliver of Hintonburg, these have
been drastic times.

"It was madness," said Peter Pilgrim, a husband and young father,
describing some of the activity neighbours could see from their front
windows.

In polite terms, it is a "chronic-problem" property.

On the pages of police reports, from the lips of neighbours, it was a
"crackhouse." To know what this entailed for the street, you really
had to live there.

"It just overpowered the neighbourhood," said Linda Feggans, 59, who
lived next door at 153 for two years.

Often, she says, she would wake up to late-night screaming, see a
parade of sketchy characters to and from 155, witness regular police
visits, find needles in the alley. She was not afraid to call police.
She might have done so 30 times, she guessed. "It brought the values
of the neighbourhood down. I'm talking about morals, family values.
I'm talking about the things that make a community."

A 23-page affidavit sworn by Ottawa police Sgt. Rob Stocki in December
- -- allegations that have not been proven in court -- makes for a
harrowing litany. "Over the last 17 years," it begins, "the property
at 155 Spadina has become notorious as a drug house."

The alleged criminal activity associated with the house breaks into 15
categories, from theft, to break-and-enter, uttering threats, assault,
mischief, drug trafficking to obstructing police.

"I've had a ton of complaints," said Vern White, police chief since
May 2007, "just since I've been here."

And don't be surprised, he added, if police and the Crown attempt to
seize more troublesome properties in 2009.

"We will be."

Though the problems at 155 Spadina recounted in the affidavit were
many, large and small -- hookers, condoms, syringes, late-night
screaming -- 2007 was the year the neighbourhood hit the wall.

Among the more lurid entries in the affidavit was this one: One summer
day, a 10-year-old boy on his front lawn was assaulted by an apparent
drug user -- suspected of coming from 155 -- stumbling along without a
shirt on. To this day, his mother fears for his safety.

With houses this close together, fire is obviously a worry. And fire
they got. On Nov. 10, at about 8 p.m., a fire broke out in the
basement of 155 after an argument between occupants, an investigator
wrote. A fire department investigator would conclude it was set
deliberately, causing damage in the $65,000 range.

"The whole neighbourhood was out," said Todd Lewis, 35, who lives
across the street, adding -- with only slight jest: "We were hoping
the place would burn down."

Not three weeks later, although the house had no electricity, three
people went back inside to smoke crack, according to a police report.
A portable generator had been set up in the basement.

At 4:05 a.m. on Nov. 30, police responded to a call about
carbon-monoxide poisoning. The three people had to be hauled out and
delivered to the General campus of The Ottawa Hospital, for possible
treatment in the hyperbaric chamber.

The stories from neighbours are legion.

One day Mr. Lewis heard a commotion outside on the street. He looked
over at 155 and spotted flashlight beams snaking up and down the
darkened house.

He thought it was a break-in until he spotted a SWAT team member with
an automatic rifle.

On that day, armed police executed a search warrant on 155, blasting
down the front door with a battering ram. Neighbours say it was at
least the second bust by SWAT members. The visits are never subtle: a
blocked street, police dogs, bullet-proof vests, guns.

Mr. Pilgrim, meanwhile, recounts the story of two apparent burglars
who tried to break into 155 by climbing on the neighbour's roof and
scaling over, three floors above the street. "It was like something
out of a Batman movie." Police were called. One of the suspects had to
be apprehended by using an aerial ladder from the fire department.

The nature of the alleged drug use -- crack, in particular -- is
thought to have contributed to the eclectic nature of the problem.

In 2005, a police officer was at a neighbourhood school to give
Halloween safety tips. Two men broke into an unmarked cruiser,
stealing a computer. Police knew where to start looking for suspects.

A short time later, two men, known crack users, were found hiding in a
crawl space, concealed in a closet inside 155, the affidavit said.

In April 2006, according to the sworn affidavit, police were
investigating a suspicious tip traced to 155. When the officer
arrived, a woman denied him access, threatening to burn any police
with a homemade flamethrower -- a lighter and an aerosol can.

On and on it went, according to the affidavit.

Staff Sgt. Murdock MacLeod said police had to review all 246 calls and
prepare a synopsis for the Ministry of the Attorney General. The
paperwork, he said, was horrendous.

"Honest to God, this was like a homicide investigation." The dollar
value of the public resources spent on investigating 155 Spadina, said
the staff sergeant, would easily be in the hundreds of thousands.

Inasmuch as the volume of calls was overwhelming, it is also how the
story began to turn.

Spadina is unexpected territory for this kind of hornet's
nest.

There are many fine homes on the street, which serves as a social
transition from the scrubbier parts of Hintonburg to the upper-middle
class flanks around the Civic hospital.

No. 155 is located between Gladstone and the Queensway. Many homes
have been converted to two-or three-unit houses. There are some
longtime owners, with roots that reach 30-plus years.

There are also young professional families, with children and purebred
dogs and custom kitchens.

Mr. Lewis, for instance, is a consultant. He and his wife, Penny, an
interior designer, have two young children. They've lived on the
street for nine years. It is evident, with one glance, that much has
been invested in their home.

Mr. Pilgrim, an IT director, and his wife, Theresa, have done
considerable work on their property, home to their three-year-old
daughter and four pets. Ms. Feggans is a receptionist in a law office.

To put it bluntly -- collectively, they simply weren't going to put up
with this on their doorsteps.

It has not been easy. While most Spadina neighbours have plenty to say
about 155, many were reluctant, if not outright afraid, to speak to
the Citizen for attribution. They don't want their names, their
photographs, their addresses in the paper.

Who can blame them?

However, in their corner, they had the Hintonburg Community
Association and the resolve of Cheryl Parrott, one of its founders in
1991. She is co-chair of the association's security committee.

It wasn't long ago that Hintonburg had neither street hookers nor
crack houses. Then trouble began to migrate from downtown. At its
peak, in 2004, Hintonburg probably had two dozen crack houses, said
Ms. Parrott. Now it's down to two or three. "People are beginning to
coalesce together and saying that you can't tolerate 10 years of chaos
on your street. It destroys the street."

The association became actively involved in advocating for the
neighbours and acting as an informal clearing house for complaints. In
2005, it wrote to the mortgagor, the Royal Bank, and the owner,
warning them about alleged drug activity, prostitution and other
unsavoury goings-on that were hazardous to the neighbourhood's wellbeing.

There was another letter to the owner in 2006 and again in September
2007. There was also frequent telephone contact.

The association, in addition to leading the charge, was helping to
build the case. As were the police. Ms. Parrott was aware of the Civil
Remedies Act, a law passed in Ontario in 2001. It allows the attorney
general to freeze and then seize assets that can be shown to be
proceeds or instruments of unlawful activity. It is typically used to
seize buildings used as marijuana grow-ops, but its reach has extended
to gang clubhouses, vehicles and bars.

For those following the crack-house problem in Ontario, 2006 was a
watershed. In a celebrated case in Hamilton, the police and the
attorney general swooped down and froze both a notorious bar and a
related residence with drug connections. Neighbours cheered. Coverage
was widespread. The good guys, if you will, were on to something.

Using Civil Remedies, however, is an unwieldy exercise that requires a
great deal of paperwork. It has only been used three times in Ottawa.

Last summer, said Staff Sgt. MacLeod, an officer came to him in
frustration that -- after more than a decade of gathering complaints
and investigating misconduct -- police were still unable to bring
about a permanent solution to the problem of 155.

The talk turned to Civil Remedies. A discussion was held with the
office that handles prosecutions for proceeds of crime, a different
but similar law. Wheels were set in motion.

The attorney general was contacted and the file began to grow. In
January, the move was made. A judge granted the motion to freeze the
asset temporarily, so the house cannot be sold.

The next likely step is to proceed with actual seizure, a move the
owner can oppose in court.

Ms. Parrott and many others believe there is a better way to proceed
in such cases than resorting to the Civil Remedies Act.

Manitoba and at least four other provinces have adopted so-called SCAN
laws, an acronym for Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Acts. SCAN
laws do not target the owner or seize private property but instead
shut down the activity. SCAN would allow the municipality to appoint a
director with special powers. The individual can work with landlords
and tenants to resolve problems outside a court setting.

If that fails, a court order can be sought that would ban individuals
from a property, terminate a tenancy agreement or even close a
property for up to 90 days.

His office flooded with complaints, Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi has
been pushing for SCAN legislation for months. He has, in fact,
introduced Bill 106, a private member's bill that would give police,
municipalities and community groups one more tool to fight habitually
bad properties.

It has received two readings at Queen's Park and is awaiting committee
assignment.

The other strong motive for SCAN legislation is the enormous amount of
time, money and public resources -- police, Crown attorneys, fire
officials, city bylaw officers, perhaps paramedics or social workers
- -- that are sucked up by habitually troublesome properties.

Chief White, meanwhile, agrees it should not take 250 police reports
and years of complaining to get some concrete action on a troublesome
property. However, he stressed that citizen involvement is critical.
"Do not let (your vigilance) go down. Because that's when they take
over the second house, then the third house."

Ottawa has made good progress in shutting down crack houses during the
last 18 months, the chief said. "We shut more crack houses down past
year than ever."

The crack trade in the city is still there, he said, but better
hidden, probably due to the creation of the force's street-crime unit.
"I'll be honest. When I came in 2007, I was disgusted with what I saw.
I thought we'd given up on the downtown. I couldn't believe the
rampant trafficking."

Ms. Parrott, meanwhile, is just glad to see some decisive action
against 155 Spadina and some peace of mind restored to the residents
of the street.

"Why should they have to live beside chaos for one, two, three years,
or like this case, as long as 20 years?"