COPS CRACKED DOWN ON CITY'S MEAN STREETS

What began as a warning from Coun. Jim Green to rogue businesses in
the Downtown Eastside became a reality over the course of 2004.

Green, whose political power is generated through Downtown Eastside
contacts, spoke to the Courier in February about plans to revitalize
the troubled neighbourhood's flailing economy.

"This is a warning, the first and only warning that we aren't going to
tolerate any illegal activity in businesses down there," Green said.

Police and city staff have known for a long time that many pubs in the
Downtown Eastside tolerate people walking through the premises selling
stolen property. Some corner stores and pawn stores in the area also
move stolen property.

A month after Green's warning the Vancouver Police Department launched
an undercover operation to root out problem business premises in the
neighbourhood.

Labelled Operation Lucille, after B.B. King's favourite guitar, it
culminated June 23 with the arrest of 29 people on more than 40
charges and a threat to close the notorious American and Marr pubs,
several pawn stores, corner stores and one grocery store.

The threat was made good a couple of months later when council's
business licence review panel cancelled the business licences of all
the problem premises recommended for closure during the operation.

The police and city licensing staff have since cancelled or suspended
the business licences of several more pubs and stores in the
community, including one shop that sold crack pipe components.

The VPD was also successful in breaking up the open drug market at the
corner of Main and Hastings streets by reintroducing beat cops to the
area, under the Citywide Enforcement Team banner.

The CET, comprising about 60 cops, is still doing undercover work on
problem businesses, rogue security guards and break and enter artists
working the neighbourhood.

However, as CET commander Insp. John McKay told the Courier this fall,
the police can only do so much in an area which has created its own
industry of non-profit societies providing services to the estimated
7,000 drug addicts in the community.

An estimated $250 million a year from government and non-profit
spending goes into the community, which with 16,000 residents
comprises only a small part of the city's overall population.

At street level, business seems to be improving and the $50 million
funnelled into the area through the Vancouver Agreement is resulting
in more services and some restoration of buildings.

When news broke that the old Woodward's department store on the corner
of Hastings and Abbott streets was bought by the city for development,
the value of property on that block jumped 30 per cent overnight.

The health crisis in the community hasn't abated, with HIV on the rise
and tuberculosis and Hepatitis C still destroying lives. Seriously
mentally ill and drug addicted people wander the streets, while
government and private institutions continue to build local housing to
cater to those people.

Some mental health advocates criticize the apparent illogic of
building housing for mentally ill, drug addicted people in an area
frequented by drug dealers and well known sex trade strolls.

As recently as this month, the provincial and federal government
announced a 100-unit development for so-called "hard-to-house" adults
one block away from the city's supervised injection site. Another
development for mentally ill seniors is under construction a few
blocks east in an area presently controlled by immigrant Vietnamese
drug dealers.

Violence also remains in the area, with an outbreak of knifings and
gunplay among dealers during the fall as they fought over diminished
territory. One man was beaten to death outside the Vancouver Coastal
Health Authority's health contact centre alongside the Carnegie Centre.

Plenty of time and money goes into harm reduction measures, such as
the supervised injection site and needle exchange, but little has
changed in the past year for people wanting treatment.

Only time will tell whether government harm reduction, police
enforcement and economic revitalization policies will change the face
of one of the city's more historic and potentially beautiful
neighbourhoods.