'COPS' SMOKING 'EM OUT

Once again Cornwall has stubbornly bucked the trend,
refusing to go along with the crowd.

How else to explain the ridiculous attention paid to smokers, while
illegal drugs - particularly cocaine - are "allowed" to run rampant.

Hard to believe, but the number of smoke cops operating in this town
today outnumber drug cops serving with Cornwall Community Police Service.

It's borderline insanity.

Don't blame the real cops.

They'd love to have a bigger unit to get the job done, but their
resources are constrained by budget/manpower concerns.

That's not a problem over at the Eastern Ontario Health
Unit.

Its smoke cops earn up to $25 an hour, plus mileage, plus a bonus in
lieu of vacation pay, which is more than some city police officers
earn.

The undercover operations used by the smoke cops rival anything
carried out by the drug cops.

Young teens who look older than 19 are recruited.

Their job is to try and entice clerks - sometimes 16 years old - to
sell them a pack of cigarettes.

In one case not long ago, one of these mini undercover agents was
slipped past security and into a highly secured private facility.

The under-age operative then managed to purchase a pack of cigarettes
from an unsuspecting employee who took for granted anyone in that
particular area had cleared security and was 19 or older.

The company which operates the facility was not impressed with the
slippery tactic and informed the health unit trespassing charges would
be laid if it happened again. And why not. It was a deliberate breach
of security.

There has been at least one case where two smoke cops - a retired OPP
officer and a retired Quebec copper doing the double dip thing - asked
for and got two city police officers to accompany them into a quiet,
neighbourhood bar.

It was an abuse of lean city police resources (11 p.m. on a Thursday
night) and shouldn't be tolerated by city police brass.