WAR AGAINST PROSTITUTION TAKES ON DRUG HOUSE

Cedar Street residents met with RCMP Monday night to express their concerns
about their neighbourhood and to develop a plan for dealing with a house
and prostitutes.

The residents are fed up with the prostitutes in their neighbourhood blame
a drug dealer's home on the street for the problem.

"It's the drug dealer I want to see gone," said a Cedar Street resident.

None of the residents want their names revealed because they said they
already face harassment and theft from the drug users and prostitutes.

"We need to close the house down," said another woman resident.

One man said the prostitutes would all leave if the house was shut down and
they couldn't get their drugs from that location.

"I think you are on the right track to deal with that house," said Sgt.
James Stiles.

He encouraged the residents to deal with the house through the proper legal
channels.

"You kick in someone's door...You could end up getting charged," Stiles said.

The residents sent a letter to the mayor, and they are going to write a
letter to the landlord about the house.

They have to go through a complicated process involving the city and the
landlord to get something done about the house. And they want the home's
owner to evict the tenant.

"The landlord is going to have to get the balls to kick him out," one woman
said.

"(The landlord) should be responsible for the people in the house," said a
man, who is frustrated about his falling property value and the situation.

Stiles said police do what they can to monitor the drugs and prostitution
on the street, and "if we have the grounds, we make an arrest."

"We tell our guys to park on Cedar Street to do their paper work," he said.
"We find it's tougher for (the dealers) to do their business."

But he acknowledged that police can only tell women suspected of
prostitution to move along and even then, they'll just come back. "Unless
somebody's breaking a law, we can't lay our hands on anybody," Stiles said.

Residents just want to feel safe in their home, and not have their children
exposed to the drug dealers and prostitutes.

"I've had the bejesus scared out of me," said a woman. "I'm scared shitless
to sleep."

She overheard two prostitutes threatening to kill each other, and women
have knocked on her door shouting for help.

"I won't stay home with my children in the summer time," said another woman
who has gone camping since the beginning of summer.