HELP FOR ABBY CORE PROVING DIVISIVE

Establishing a detox centre in Abbotsford is a priority, according to the
50 or more people who turned out for a public forum on the problems that
plague the city's historic downtown area.

Community representatives - business, social agencies, law enforcement,
churches and municipal government - expressed their concern that the drug
trade and its ancillary problems like property crime, theft and
prostitution, will spread throughout the city if there isn't a way to get
people off drugs.

"There needs to be a substantial reduction of a whole number of problems in
the downtown core," Abbotsford Police Department Const. Denys Scully told
the crowd.

He said disease, crime, danger, harassment, unemployment and a host of
other social ills are plaguing the downtown core as a direct result of the
drug trade's invasion.

"What we want to do is get control of what's going on downtown," the
officer said.

He said harm-reduction strategies - needle exchanges, methadone clinics and
more - have to be explored and that many of the crime perpetrators are
victims too.

Scully said that, as part of the Integrated Services Team, a three-pronged
plan of enforcement, social improvement and education is needed to address
the downtown core's problems.

He pointed to the area's "higher than normal" concentration of social
service agencies, pawn shops and liquor outlets as contributing to the problem.

Mary Reeves of the Downtown Abbotsford Business Association had a message
for the entire city.

"Whatever issues are happening here are affecting all of you," she said.
"The kids buying drugs here are from your neighbourhood. The johns buying
hookers are from your neighbourhood."

She said local businesses are severely affected by the drug and crime problem.

"There's a great deal of fear out there sometimes," Fiona Brett, a director
with the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce.

Josie Kane, an addiction counsellor, said, "There are a lot of groups that
are very concerned about our community."

She said social workers have always struggled with the lack of resources.

"Our community really needs resources," she said, adding that nowadays kids
are getting into serious drugs like crytal methamphetamine.

Uultsje De Jong, head of the Abbotsford Detoxification and Rehabilitation
Committee, chaired Wednesday's meeting at Trinity Memorial Church on Hazel
Street.

"There is a movement toward getting detox in the city," he told the audience.

He said that of 73 detox beds in the Lower Mainland, 22 are available to
the Fraser Valley and only three of those are for youth.

"It's unacceptable to say to a kid, 'Sorry, there's no beds.' "

De Jong said, "It takes considerable money to bring a detox centre. We need
to put pressure on our politicians, be they municipal or provincial."

The provincial government recently closed the only adolescent female
rehabilitation treatment centre at Campbell Valley.

Scully said he and other in policing have already seen the problems moving
into other areas of the city.

Indeed Heather Anderson, manager of Sevenoaks Shopping Centre, attended the
meeting.

"The crime issues and drug issues that you have in downtown are spreading
to Sevenoaks," Anderson told the crowd. "We're very concerned."

Abbotsford Mayor George Ferguson, who chairs the Abbotsford Police Board,
told the crowd the drug and crime problems exist elsewhere in the city.

"(Police) can't be everywhere," he said.

Also at the meeting were city councillors Ed Fast and Patricia Ross.

Fast asked how many people think getting a detox centre is a priority for
Abbotsford and everyone put their hands in the air.

But, Scully added, "There are some people, in policing and other areas,
that don't want detox in Abbotsford, especially if it's a regional thing."

He said that would bring addicts into the area and could have its own set
of problems.

But one woman in the crowd, a recovering addict, said she was in a
treatment facility where five of the 17 clients were from Abbotsford.

"We don't have four years," she said. "People will be dead."

Scully said police are stretched and added that a 1997 report identified
the city was 17 officers short of what was needed then. He said any
additional officers since then have only matched population growth.

"These things in the downtown, they didn't happen overnight. They're not
going to be solved overnight."

The meeting had its anxious moments when notorious marijuana activist Tim
Felger showed up with a B.C. Marijuana Party candidate to promote their
"anti-prohibition" views and several people took exception to his presence.

"Do you know who I am?" Andrew Rowe of Full Circle Ministries asked as he
stood to face Felger. "I used to work for you."

One woman told Felger, "Your opinions are your opinions and you're entitled
to them. But I don't have to be subjected to them."