MOUTHWASH, HAIRSPRAY SALES SPUR POLICE RAID

Grocery Selling to Abusers: Officials

CITY police and provincial justice officials raided a core-area
grocery store yesterday for allegedly selling mouthwash and hairspray
to inner-city substance abusers.

Police allege the store owner sold the products -- the mouthwash has
an alcohol content of 26 per cent -- over the counter at a 400 per
cent markup. A $2 bottle of mouthwash sold for $8.

"It's about time they closed this place down," inner-city resident
James Cook said. "The people are drinking poison and they don't know
it. It's killing people."

Cook said abusers drank the mouthwash straight -- "It's like whiskey,"
he said -- and mixed the hairspray with water in a large bottle to
drink.

Police spokeswoman Const. Shelly Glover said the owner of the store,
Ellen Foods at 407 Elgin Ave., was charged under the Liquor Control
Act with selling a non-potable intoxicating substance for the purpose
of consumption.

The store owner declined to comment. "I do not speak English," he
said. Police seized more than two dozen cartons of mouthwash and
hairspray and carted them out to a police van. Some of the products
had gone beyond their expiry date.

Al Cameron, manager of the province's public safety investigation
branch, said the store would be closed permanently under the Safer
Communities and Neighbourhoods Act if there was any further evidence
of selling mouthwash or hairspray for consumption.

"Today we gave him a warning if there is one more sale we will close
him down," Cameron said.

Cameron added police learned of the store's alleged activities July 14
and acted quickly to gather enough evidence to secure a search warrant.

Cook said the Elgin-area substance abusers would often drink in a
nearby playground where they often passed out.

"Just go down that lane," he said. "There's someone passed out now."
Cook said he once drank the same substances, but turned his life
around after joining Alcoholics Anonymous.

Cameron said it was the 69th building investigated by the province
since the act was created three years ago.

Authorities boarded up a house on Selkirk Avenue July 9 after evicting
its owner and seven other alleged members or associates of a street
gang. The house at 126 Selkirk Ave. was the scene of frequent
shootings inside and out and was the centre of a drug trade involving
marijuana, cocaine and crack cocaine, a provincial Justice Department
official said.