SERIES: ABBY MERCHANTS FRUSTRATED BUT HOPEFUL

Editor's note: This is the third installment in a four-part
series.

After years of being harassed by hookers, pimps and drug dealers,
physiotherapist Carol Metcalfe gave up.

She closed her business in January after 10 years at the corner of
Homeview and Pauline streets, known locally as "crack alley" because
of the high quantity of drugs sold there. It is arguably the worst
corner in Abbotsford.

In what used to be a respectable neighbhourhood are empty lots,
wretched housing and parking lots. The neighbors are drug dealers and
addicts. A ministry hands out coffee to street people right next door
to Metcalfe's old office. A bar is down the street.

"I couldn't deal with it any more and I don't miss it one bit," she
said.

"I was angry, I was frustrated, I was stressed to the max. I was ready
to kill," she said, the frustration still evident in her voice.

Wingsong Florist was across the street. The owner relocated last month
to South Fraser Way after steadily losing business for three years,
said manager Lisa Jahns.

"There's only so many times a well-dressed man buying roses for his
wife will put up with being approached by hookers. We moved," Jahns
said.

Metcalfe said she's not unsympathetic to the street workers' plight,
but empathy wore thin as their constant presence and antics forced her
out of business.

She's had prostitutes pass out in her waiting room. Husbands dropping
their wives off for appointments wouldn't wait around because
prostitutes would harass them "for a date."

"The girls are so aggressive they'd just jump into their cars," she
said.

Metcalfe never knew what to expect when she came to work: a pool of
blood on the sidewalk, human feces at the back door, a break-in.

Outside the front window, Metcalfe, her staff and clients were
entertained by drug-addled women selling sex to middle-class,
middle-aged men driving by at 6 a.m. or 6 p.m. in their SUVs or the
family van, complete with baby seats in the back.

"There's no way you can convince me those are not family men. They go
with these prostitutes (and) you know they're HIV-positive," she said.

Unheard of 10 years, sex trade workers number about 40 today, say
Abbotsford police, with a concentration currently in the old town
centre. Metcalfe's clientele dropped off and after losing $60,000 of
business last year, coupled with health coverage changes this year,
she closed shop.

For the time being, the 10-year-old Abbotsford Chiropractic clinic
next door is staying put, but chiropractors Mike McCallum and Jerry
Ward say they may have to move.

"It's affected our business tremendously. Our evening traffic has
dropped off," said Ward.

They deal with the situation as best as they can. They clean up the
litter, they keep blinds closed, they ask the street walkers not to
solicit their patients, they call the police and they are cautious.

"You feel captive by the situation," Ward said.

"Realistically, if this problem wants to be here, we'll probably have
to move where it isn't," added McCallum.

Two blocks north on Essendene at the chic Howarth's Ladies Apparel,
Delores Johns and her sister Sylvia West are determined to stay in the
boutique West bought in 1963. Opened in 1948, Howarth's has seen
downtown devolve from the town centre to a drab backwater many pass by
in favour of shopping malls.

Like most Canadian downtowns, this one struggles to draw consumers and
businesses. A few specialty shops have survived.

Lately, business schools and more shops have settled in to join the
more transient mix of pawn shops and cheque-cashing outlets.

The Abbotsford Downtown Business Association, which draws funds from
250 area businesses, including 170 landlords, has been on a campaign
to rejuvenate the village atmosphere in the six-block radius.

Murals, art benches, period lamps, landscaping, wider sidewalks, the
Berry Festival and a Christmas tree lighting all aim to welcome foot
traffic.

It may be working. Mary Reeves of the Abbotsford Downtown Business
Association said merchants report they had their best Christmas season
ever.

The vacancy rate hovers around eight per cent and businesses are
asking to come in, she said.

"There are so many positive, wonderful things going on in the area,"
said Johns. But now the merchants want control over who comes
in.

The ADBA is pushing for a bylaw, now in its early draft stages, to
limit the pawn shop variety of businesses.

"We don't need any more pool halls, we don't need any more ministries.
We need that special zoning very badly. We have to able to have family
shopping stores, to have more restaurants and unique shops," in an
area where people want to stay and explore, said Johns.

She feels certain that city council, after years of foot-dragging,
will enact the bylaw. It's a step that has worked to invigorate other
jurisdictions, the merchants say.

College instructor Sherie Enns, who teaches social geography and
urban design, offers some hope for the downtown group.

People are "malled out," according to recent studies, she
said.

"People are tired of the sameness of malls. They're looking for a
different experience. I think there's a real hunger for it."