DRUG ADDICTS ALLOWED INTO CARNEGIE CENTRE

The city-owned Carnegie Centre has dropped a rule banning drug users from
entering the building. The centre's director, Michael Clague, told the
Straight that the decision came after a mediation meeting with the
Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, which had filed a human-rights
complaint against the centre.

"They can use the whole building," Clague said.

The Straight has reported in the past that known drug users have been
prevented from entering the building to use the washrooms. Clague said that
people can still be barred for bad behaviour inside the facility, which is
at the corner of Main and Hastings streets on the Downtown Eastside.
However, he said that security staff will no longer ban people from
entering who have been observed in the past buying drugs outside on the street.

VANDU project coordinator Ann Livingston told the Straight that two years
ago she filed a human-rights complaint on behalf of the organization
against the Carnegie Centre. Livingston said drug users felt that the
centre's "seen-buying" policy discriminated against them.

"It's an inappropriate role for a security guard," Livingston said.

She said the courts have defined addiction as a disability. Under the Human
Rights Code, it is illegal to deny anyone "accommodation, service or a
facility customarily available to the public" because of a person's mental
or physical disability.

Clague said that after the complaint was filed, the Carnegie Centre
conducted an extensive consultation process, which he described as a "royal
commission", to review its admissions policy. He said people in the
community reached a consensus on everything but the "seen-buying" policy.

According to Clague, the building's admission policy now stipulates that
people are not permitted to bring alcohol or drugs into the building.
"Essentially, what we arrived at was wording through a mediator, which
achieved our objectives and seemed to satisfy VANDU as well," Clague said.

Livingston said she has no problem with the Carnegie Centre preventing
people from entering who are "noticeably loaded". She also said that she
wants the Coalition of Progressive Electors-controlled city council to
review other city-owned facilities to ensure that drug users aren't
suffering discrimination elsewhere.

Two years ago, the Straight reported that the founder of the Vancouver
Needle Exchange, John Turvey, had filed a human-rights complaint against
the Carnegie Centre, alleging that its admission policy discriminated
against intravenous drug users. The issue was then taken up by VANDU
activist Dean Wilson and later by the VANDU board.