BATTLE TO CONTROL MEAN STREETS MAY TAKE ON AN ITALIAN
TWIST

The honour system has finally been abandoned on the Greater Vancouver
buses. The establishment of on-board "fare paid zones" and the
appearance of someone to check tickets is an effort to stem the
problem of people refusing to pay and assaulting drivers who remind
them the ride isn't quite free.

It seems once a city reaches a certain size, it doesn't have enough
honour for honour systems. Surveys indicated Ottawa doesn't yet have
bus anarchy, but Toronto does.

A relieved Vancouver bus driver said being spit on wasn't the worst of
it. He's also been punched, kicked and pulled from his seat while the
bus was moving.

In Victoria the Canada Day fireworks has been known for a finale
involving drunken brawls on the upper deck of those London-style
buses. Victoria is just reaching the critical mass where such
night-time public events are surrendered and the downtown streets
given over to purveyors of the nightly buffet of blood, pee and
pavement pizza.

There is the illegal drug problem. Victoria's mayor still believes in
something called a "safe injection site," as the city looks for a new
home for its blight of a needle exchange program. Nanaimo's pilot
project to hand out crack pipes sputtered out like a spent Bic
lighter, due to threats from ungrateful recipients.

The Capital Regional District is right on the ball. They've instituted
a crackdown, not on crack, but on outdoor patio smoking. New
provincial regulations are being worked out now to bar smoking around
doorways and windows as of next year, but that's not far or fast
enough for some urban social engineers.

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan is offering fresh air on the drug
problems that plague his city. He's moving on from safe injection and
needle exchange stopgaps that promote continued abuse. Give the
hardcore addicts legal pills that approximate the ups and downs of
cocaine and heroin, he suggests, and at least they have a hope of
getting off the mean streets.

But the most sensible strategy is coming from Vancouver-Burrard MLA
Lorne Mayencourt, who earlier pioneered the radical notion
pedestrians, like bus drivers, shouldn't have to put up with being
threatened or assaulted.

He has been touring the province to promote the model of the San
Patrignano treatment community in Italy, a remote self-contained rural
facility where people can check in and stay for three to five years,
drug-free and working at a real job. It has more than 2,000 people in
voluntary attendance, and claims a 75 per cent success rate.

Mayencourt has identified a location, a former radar station called
Baldy Hughes located 30 km southwest of Prince George. It offers a
dormitory, mobile home pads, welding and woodworking shops, a bowling
alley, curling rink and gym.

Prince George already has its share of big-city problems, being a
service centre for the medical, social and penal needs of the north.
But it too could benefit from this refreshing approach to the
low-level crime, panhandling and prostitution intertwined with drugs
in urban centres.

There are other remote locations around the province that could take a
similar approach. It seems like a better idea than waiting for
Vancouver or Victoria to develop something that actually has a chance
of working.