FIGHTING BACK

Whalley Neighbours Band Together To Drive Out Illegal Activities

The file is thick, maybe 100 pages with 13 lines per page and each
line records one instance of drug activity in the trailer park Fred
and Judy Kenmuir call home.

The Kenmuirs live in a small park at 9525 King George Hwy., and
they're fed up with the drug dealing, prostitution, theft and other
criminal activity there.

They got together with their neighbours last September and began
organizing to clean up the place. The log of drug deals is part of that effort.

The file equals 1,300 buys since residents started keeping records in
November. The information is passed on to the RCMP, but putting a
stop to all the crime is slow going.

"We've got drug dealers bringing drugs into the park. We've got
people who live here buying from them and selling to others. We've
got thieves in here. We've got prostitutes bringing johns in here to
do their business. Stolen cars get dumped here and there are assaults
- - there's been two or three in just the last few weeks," says Fred.

He was so tired of the all the trouble he was ready to sell his
trailer and move out. When he talked to Judy about leaving, she had
other ideas.

"She said since when do you give up without a fight? That's when we
decided to organize," he says.

Seventeen people signed up to take back the park at the September
meeting and they went looking for help from police, city hall, MLAs
and MPs. Kenmuir has nothing but praise for the backing they've had
from the RCMP and Green Timbers MLA Sue Hammell. He was less
impressed with the response from city hall.

"I called the mayor's office and someone there told me there's
nothing they can do. She said we should call a councillor. I left a
message, but nobody ever called back."

Mayor Dianne Watts said Thursday she had trouble believing anyone in
her office would blow them off like that and promised to use city
resources to bring pressure to bear on the park owner to clean up.
"I'm going to call our bylaws manager right now. We'll get something
happening down there," she said. "People should not have to live with that."

The park is owned by Gurmukh Gill's Score Holdings. The residents say
they've tried to get Gill to deal with the troublemakers without success.

"He took it over in 1995 and it just got worse since then," Judy
says. "He doesn't care. This used to be a really nice place to live."

Gill tells a different story.

He says he's tried to get rid of the drug dealers and other
miscreants in the park, but says it's hard to do.

He claims to have handed them eviction notices, but they refuse to leave.

"I'm going to clean it up in there. I'm working on it."

He'd do well to follow through on that promise if he wants to avoid
trouble from city hall.

"We've got specific bylaws to make sure trailer parks are well cared
for and that's the responsibility of the owner," Watts said.

"We'll deal with unsightly premises, we can do building inspections.
We can get fire down there to deal with all this."