MERCHANTS DEMAND ACTION

Frustration over downtown crime boiled over at City Hall Tuesday
night. Mayor Walter Gray got an earful from 50 downtown merchants and
supporters fed up with the open drug deals and scary transients
accosting their customers. Minutes before last night's council meeting
began, angry business operators met with Gray for five minutes in the
council chamber. They demanded to know what action the city is taking
to make the west end of Leon Avenue and adjoining streets safer. "We
need to hear some noise out of this building. The Downtown Kelowna
Association seems to think there's no problem. We're frustrated. I
don't think council or the mayor understand that," said Robert
Simkins, a merchant on Lawrence Avenue

One woman demanded a vagrants law. "People are getting threatened and
robbed. Our town is turning into a filthy mess," she said. Merchants
complain that strung-out drug dealers are scaring off customers and
crushing their business. Transients sleep in shop entranceways and
leave excrement or condoms. They're getting more aggressive,
soliciting for money and trying to get into shops

"Every shop owner has been asked if they want to buy crystal meth,
crack or marijuana," said one owner. "The problem is really exploding
down here. No one will want to continue to do business here." Bob
Mueller, who owns a Lawrence Avenue business, told the mayor someone
tried to steal his employee's purse recently. He wants police to move
the people sleeping on the streets every two hours

"When I come to work in the morning, I have to move them," he said.
"If you keep people moving, they figure it out. And police keep tabs
on what's going on." Gray admitted there's a "deep social issue" among
drug addicts and the mentally ill downtown and in cities across the
province. He assured the merchants that the city's planning
department, the RCMP, Interior Health and other officials are trying
to come up with a multi-pronged solution

"It can't happen instantly," he said. "Hopefully, by the end of
February, this community will have a very satisfying package of
options to make the problem go away. . . . Action is what you're
waiting for, and you'll get it." A growing number of businesses have
pulled out of the downtown core already. After 27 years in the same
Leon location, Susan Raulin closed Ted's Paperbacks and Coins last
weekend and moved to Sutherland Avenue. She said until now, the city
has paid only lip service to the problem

"I went through this 10 years ago. I met with the Gospel Mission and
the mayor about cleaning up the area and not allowing loitering
outside the mission. We worked hard and we got zilch

"All that time, and absolutely nothing came from it." The criminal
element has invaded the homeless population to the point that innocent
people living on the street are afraid to venture downtown. Some of
the hardest cases hang out in front of the abandoned liquor store and
the Gospel Mission during the day

"The solution is tough, and it will take a long time," Raulin said.
"I'm sorry for downtown, but I wouldn't go back there." Many point to
extra policing as a solution. The RCMP plans to hire 10 new officers
by May, but merchants are concerned only four of them will end up
patrolling the downtown. Even with a greater police presence, there's
little hope the dealers will stop driving by. Ten minutes after an
officer patrols the street, groups of crack-smokers reassemble

"They're more than happy to come here because no one does anything
about it," said one merchant. "We can't stay in business if it
continues. We can't live off our savings. Not many of us are making
money anymore."