DRUG DEN BUSTED NEAR DAY CARE

Neighbours in the 600-block of Pine Street are heaving a sigh of relief
after Nanaimo RCMP shut down a crack house operating a stone's throw from
the Nanaimo Boys and Girls Club.

"My main concern was the day care for the kids," said Marion Pentland, a
resident of a two-storey walk-up apartment across the street in the mixed
residential-industrial area.

For months she and neighbours watched helplessly as their neighbourhood was
taken over by addicts who turned up at all hours to buy drugs from the
second floor of a warehouse at 625 Pine.

Jim Gauvreau, a shift worker, said typically the traffic just got started
as he arrived home from work, at between 12:30 and 1 a.m.

"They were going till six in the morning," Gauvreau said.

"It's not the noise, it's just the constant driving in and out."

For Pentland, a Malaspina University-College bakery student, prostitutes
posed a constant threatening presence while she walked to college for her 5
a.m. classes.

"There were so many hookers walking around here," she said.

Shawna Taylor saw it too.

"I noticed some strange women standing out there staring at you when you
walked by," she said.

On Friday night Nanaimo RCMP arrested a man near the warehouse and seized
85 grams of cocaine and four grams of heroin, along with some knives and cash.

Then they got a search warrant to enter the warehouse, located above a
salal- and mushroom-buying station.

Six people were arrested and police seized what they believed were stolen
items and a large number of suspect counterfeit cigarettes.

The six were later released.

When the Boys and Girls Club learned of the police investigation, staff did
what they could to keep children safe at the day care. After-school care
and teen programs are also provided.

The club has no immediate plans to move, but is open to suggestions.

"There may very well could be and I would appreciate any help by the
community to find a new location," board president Alan Webster said.