'THEY'RE SCARY'

Hard-Drug Dealers Move To Bute & Davie

Drug dealers openly sell their wares. Prostitutes and pimps on Davie St
strike deals with johns on the main drag. Stolen goods are part of an open
street market.

A scene from Janis Cole and Holly Dales' 1984 documentary Hookers On Davie
- -- before a clean-up that paved the way for the gay community's growth?

Nope.

Bute and Thurlow last week.

Merchants at the intersection say the proliferation of hard-drug dealing,
pimping and the sale of stolen goods has skyrocketed since the Apr 7 start
of the Vancouver Police Department's crackdown on the Downtown Eastside.

And they want to know what the police are going to do about it.

Hamburger Mary's chef/manager George Adams says he watched a prostitution
transaction happen near the Bute St liquor store.

"We got rid of that," he says. "We've always had a little bit but ever
since the police crackdown in the East End, they didn't solve anything
there, they just moved it over here.

"I wish they would do something to alleviate that."

And, Adams adds, Nelson Park has become a no-go zone for residents as
transients have made it a big campsite.

"You can't enjoy the park or tan or something," he says. "Everything that's
being sold there is either stolen or picked out of the garbage."

Davie Village Business Improvement Association (BIA) president Randy
Atkinson says the alleys have become neighbourhoods of cardboard homes. He
says the re-emergence of crime at the corner has become a real problem. If
one wanted to pick a date for its start, Apr 7 is as good as any, Atkinson
says.

"It's a direct result of that," he says. The people there are much
different than the usual West End panhandling crowd which has populated the
corner for years, he adds.

"They're more aggressive. They're threatening. They're scary."

At West Valley Produce on Bute Street, manager Andrew Lo has put bars on
his store after 25 years in business. He's tired of people sleeping outside
his store, people stealing from his outdoor stands.

"They make a mess. We have to clean it up every morning--needles, garbage,
coffee cups, dirty clothing."

Lo started a petition asking city hall to clean the situation up. he says
there's been no response. The occasional police presence scares the crowds
away for about five minutes. Then they're back, Lo says.

"I'm just getting tired of calling police," he says. "You can't call police
every five minutes. They laugh at you."

The Davie and Bute corner was not mentioned in a Jun 27 police report to
council which, it acknowledges the crackdown has shifted some of the
hard-drug problems to areas outside the Downtown Eastside (DTES).

"The dramatic reduction in disorder in the DTES has resulted in some
dispersal of problems in the DTES, and has exacerbated a pre-existing drug
trafficking problem focussed in the area of Dunsmuir and Seymour," the
report notes.

Adams says he was told nothing could be done about the situation when he
approached the Davie Community Policing Centre. But Atkinson says the BIA
has had a good response, especially from Det Roz Shakespeare.

Atkinson says the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Area has used its
Ambassador program to move "undesirables" along. He says the Davie BIA
would like to see more enforcement in the village.

Atkinson was also critical of the provincial government, saying cuts to
disability payments have forced many people into panhandling.