WHEN THE DEALERS -AND THEIR MONEY- GO AWAY

Trash whipped up in swirling winds as the skies darkened over North 5th Street.

But children played through a slight sprinkle. It would take more than a
threatened storm to chase them inside.

"You see more of them outside now," said a man nodding toward a group of
children playing a few doors from his wrought-iron railing.

"It's better," a woman on the adjoining stoop agreed. "They still sell
drugs. They just moved it inside."

In a running turf war between the cops and drug dealers, the cops are
winning. For now.

Operation Safe Streets, a long-overdue answer to the neighbors prayers, is
making a difference in this drug-ravaged district.

Close proximity to I-95 made North 5th an easy mark for the drive-by drug
trade. Addicts could find their favorite flavor somewhere along this
corridor and be back on the highway before police could react.

There were scores of blocks like this in Kensington, South Philadelphia,
West Philadelphia and North Central Philadelphia. Open- air drug markets
thrived in quieter neighborhoods, too.

But few neighborhoods have been devastated like Kensington and neighboring
Fairhill. The underground economy infects every aspect of life on the streets.

Residents still root for the good guys in Kensington and Fairhill. But
maybe not as loud as they do in places where the drug trade is not such an
integral part of the local economy.

Fareed Sham Sud-Din thought about it. "I'm in favor of what they're doing",
he said finally. "But these guys on the corners ain't growing this stuff.

"Some of them got nothing else going for them. They gotta get it anyway
they can."

Three men trying to get a car started in the 3600 block of 5th Street
nodded in agreement.

"I'm a merchant on Germantown Avenue," one said. "This is hurting business.
Money don't have names on it. You don't know where it comes from.

"The (dealers)never bothered me. But it is a little safer. Yeah, I guess
it's good for the kids."

Elvira Nunez, who runs a corner grocery at 9th and Cambria St. feels the
pinch. But she wasn't about to complain.

"Business? Not so good," she confirmed. "But no drugs on the corner. It's
better."

Much better for William Clark who lives on the corner of 11th and Cambria
with his wife, five grandchildren and two adult children.

"I tip my hat to them," he said, glancing toward a patrol car parked in the
next block. "I couldn't sit out here like this.

"They were all over the place. Sometimes 15 or 20 of them on the next
corner. They'd be up there. But at night, you could hear them shooting
their guns right past my house.

"I know it's going to cost us a lot of (tax) money to pay for it. But I'm
glad they're doing it.

"Now we're going to have to do something. If they can't sell drugs, they
might be doing stickups next. We gotta be ready."