MILE-END SMACK DOWN

Junkie Mass Eviction Raises Questions About How Cops Handle Addicts

In the spring of 2003, contractor Peter Spino, 45, was on the hunt for a
hot property in the Mile-End area. By May he was the not-so-proud
proprietor of a crackhouse/ shooting gallery on Parc Avenue. "I walked in
and the lights had been blacked out," Spino says. "There was a terrible
smell, like ammonia - you'd get stoned just walking down the hall. People
had taken out their rage on the walls, they were pocked with holes. The
doors had no locks, no buzzers, no fire alarms. The rooms were filled with
guys shooting up."

Spino, who had informed his real estate agent that he could deal with
"anything" for the right price, bought the property from the Caisse
Populaire Desjardins Prefontaine-Hochelaga for $200,000. The six-plex, at
5896-5900A Parc, between Van Horne and Bernard, is made up of a storefront
on the ground and second- and third-floor bachelor apartments. The building
had been in real estate limbo for a year, having been seized from a
mortgage-defaulting owner by the Caisse Pop in August 2002. By November,
the Caisse was pursuing tenants Carl Chamberlain, Guy Voltaire and Pierre
Boulanger for unpaid rent. One month later, the Regie du logement awarded
the bank nearly $6,000 in damages, legal fees and back rent, cancelling
leases and ordering expulsions.

Crack Came Back

But it is not clear whether or not the Caisse, who refused to comment on
this story, ever expelled the tenants. When Peter Spino became the
proprietor, he used police to drive out tenants without leases in early
June and hired a bailiff to enforce the December judgement to expel the
three condemned tenants in July. According to Spino, the occupants without
leases were moving in with those who had. Every time he came back the rooms
were full. The doors were unlocked, the windows could still be broken into.
The building was notorious to its neighbours, who complained of the noise,
fights, and people sleeping stoned on the sidewalk or steps. The phone at
police Station 36 rang with complaints. Furthermore, Spino was calling them
every day. Even so, the first four weeks of arrests and threats only drove
people away temporarily. Then Spino boarded the place up.

Jane, a nearby resident who requested anonymity in order to avoid possible
repercussions from the users and dealers in the area, says the cops were in
and out of the building every three days. "People were moving in and out
every two months," she says. "We heard arguments, screaming. Twice the cops
blasted in with guns. I've been here four years, and I'm really fed up. I
can't wait until they're gone."

The building facade is dilapidated; the storefront windows are blocked with
blankets and mismatched pieces of cloth, the aluminum doorframe is damage
and unlocked. The empty store is currently occupied by someone whom Spino
says "may be next" on his expulsion list. On the second floor, the windows
are still blocked with plywood.

"These people don't care about being arrested," says Spino. "They don't
care about anything. I came in here with police, told them all to get out
and 15 of them whipped off their clothes to go take a shower first. I had a
lineup of naked junkies in front of me. I threw the squatters out and they
all went into the rooms with leases. I thought they'd never leave. For four
solid weeks, every time I'd come in here I would call police. Eventually I
screwed the doors shut, and boarded up the windows. That's why there is
still plywood there. Once the apartments are rented I will take it off." He
is currently renovating.

Safety First

Police media relations director Luc Belhumeur wouldn't comment on the
specific nature of police action for this particular building, or
techniques for getting rid of buildings used by addicts. He did say the
problem seems to be almost resolved.

"We try to get rid of them permanently," says Belhumeur. "We received a lot
of complaints about this building, but we do not believe it was a
crackhouse. It was a place where drugs were being sold, mostly marijuana.
We deal with each case individually. The citizen's quality of life is
paramount and we try to assure that citizens feel safe in their
neighbourhoods."

Paul, another neighbour who requested anonymity, says the eviction process
was ugly. "People were literally put out on the street. The apartments were
emptied, windows broken. They're still cleaning up the mess in the back.
The cops conducted systematic arrests every three days. I don't have
anything against [the addicts], I lived in lots of big cities. Drugs are a
part of city life."

No tolerance no solution

The problem is that repression achieves little in the long term. Addicts
are released back onto the street, where they inevitably offend someone's
sensibilities, either in a park, an alleyway, or an abandoned building.
According to Bernard St-Jacques, a community organizer at the Reseau d'aide
aux personnes seules et itinerantes de Montreal (RAPSIM), police are
showing signs of a zero-tolerance policy.

"There is more than one kind of crackhouse," says St-Jacques. "Some are
full of people looking for a place to go because they are scared to do it
in the street. Others are organized by someone for the purpose of shooting
up. Some people don't want to go to them but they have no home or security
to go dope up. I am not saying that seeing people with needles in their arm
is fun, but there is a between-space between purely repressive
intervention, displacement, criminalization and doing nothing."

Peter Spino thinks the cops don't do enough intervention. He says he sees
the dealer walking up and down his block all the time doing business.
"Police are not taking these guys off the street," he says. "I used to call
them and say, 'Bring a van, take some pictures, they're doing it in broad
daylight.' But no one ever came." According to St-Jacques, the natural
result of expulsion is that the addicts are on the streets. "What is
pernicious is that instead of their syringes being in a room or building,
they will be on the streets, in parks or alleyways," says St-Jacques. "Then
there is more repression. Summer is always the hardest for marginal types.
The festivals, more people in the streets and longer daylight hours mean a
lot more intimidation, harassment and repression by police. All the means
the police are using are an affirmation of zero tolerance."