DOUGLAS MERCHANTS WANT TO HANG UP PUBLIC PAY PHONES

A trio of pay phones on the 1300-block of Douglas Street are not a public
service but a pipeline for drug deals and prostitution, claim nearby merchants.

So the merchants want the phones and the people they attract removed from
the area.

Kendra Watson, manager of ARQ Hair Workshop at 1317 Douglas St., called her
shop's block "drug central" because of the amount of drug dealing she
claims to observe on a daily basis.

ARQ was one of a number of businesses in the immediate area that joined
forces recently to write a letter to Victoria city council asking that the
three pay phones in question be removed from the area.

"This block, and the two blocks heading towards City Hall, all day long all
they do is drug-deal," she claimed. "You see them signalling to each other
and doing walk-by (deals). It's pretty continual through the day. I come in
at 8 a.m. and it's already started."

Discussing the issue last week at a committee-of-the-whole meeting, city
councillors were loath to yank the phones out completely, noting their
value to tourists or people facing emergencies.

Councillors instead asked city staff to investigate shifting two of the
three pay phones to other areas of the city where there are fewer pay
phones, such as an area of Old Town between Broughton and Johnson streets.

Coun. Dean Fortin said moving the phones wouldn't solve the alleged
problem, only move the problem to a different part of the downtown.

"It's a city-wide problem," he said, noting that residents in the Fernwood
and Burnside neighbourhoods have voiced similar concerns about particular
pay phone booths.

Watson said her clients, some of whom are seniors, are intimidated by some
of the people who hang out along the block of Douglas Street in question.

Ludovic Renaud, who has worked as a chef at Crepe de Paris since it opened
a year ago at 1313 Douglas St., also said alleged illicit activity goes on
"all day long" at the pay phones in the area.

"The problem is it's like drug dealers are using that as their office," he
said. "If it's not the drug dealers, it's the prostitutes."

Renaud said some customers choose not to come to his restaurant anymore,
because they are uncomfortable. He conceded, however, that the environment
in general has improved since Victoria police began cracking down drug
dealing in the downtown core.

Victoria police Insp. Bill Naughton said that although policing pay phone
activity is not something the department spends much time on, moving one or
two of the phones to a different downtown location might impact the amount
of drug dealing in the area. However, he noted that cell phones have
reduced drug dealers' reliance on pay phones in recent years.

"I think, based on our experiences in the 600- and 700-blocks of Yates,
when those were problem areas, (moving phones) has some positive impact,"
he said. "But are the pay phones a make or break issue for us? Clearly,
they're not."

Victoria transportation and development manager Clive Timms said the expiry
date for the city's agreement with Telus for the phones in question is July
1. Following up on a suggestion by Mayor Alan Lowe, he said discussion
concerning moving the phones will be ongoing in the interim.