POLICE, RESIDENTS TARGET DRUG DENS

At one point, a quiet night for Bill Smith meant no violence or drug
deals on his front lawn.

The resident of the 600 block of St. Paul Street downtown was used to
screaming and swearing, round-the-clock traffic and strangers coming
and going in the area at all hours.

What a difference 12 months can make.

Concentrated efforts by the Kamloops Downtown Residents' Association
(KDRA) and the RCMP have all but cleaned up at least part of the
problem downtown - rooming and rental homes rife with drug and
alcohol abuse.

In fact, Kamloops RCMP are confident they've wiped out nuisance drug
houses in the downtown altogether - that is, the four-block stretch
between Columbia and Seymour streets and between Third and 13th
avenues.

"There are no active drug houses in the downtown like there were a
year ago," explains Const. Mike Pears, with the RCMP's team policing
unit.

Smith, who has lived downtown for nearly a decade, agrees.

"It's been cleaned up a lot and has improved, for sure. The
prostitution is not as visible and the traffic's not there like it
used to be," he said.

In September of last year, police embarked on Project Alpha.

Members of the RCMP's team policing and special projects units began
targeting homes that area residents identified as problematic.

These included homes in the 600 block of St. Paul Street, 600 block
of Battle Street and 500 block of Eighth Avenue, among others.

"We did surveillance on the houses, checked people leaving the area
=8A soon we were able to put the drug to the (individual) house,"
said Pears.

Over the last 12 months, police have executed at least a half-dozen
search warrants on downtown homes where it was believed drug
trafficking was occurring. Inside, RCMP were finding relatively small
quantities of heroin and cocaine.

Pears admits that added police enforcement isn't the only reason the
area is slowly returning to more of a quiet residential
neighbourhood. And the problem of drugs hasn't disappeared, it's just
far less visible.

Part of the issue was a concentration of rooming-houses and rental
properties. Pears said police are working with landlords, trying to
get the message across to be more aware of who they are renting to.

Brian Vye, president of the Kamloops Downtown Business Association,
said some of the previous rental homes have been cleaned up and are
now owner-occupied. Some rooming-houses in the downtown that were
once considered a problem are now vacant.

Landlords are also taking more of a role with their downtown
properties, scrutinizing who they rent to and ensuring that the homes
are kept clean and regularly maintained.

"It makes a huge difference just having someone on the property who's
responsible. I think too that it's co-operation from all the
citizens, because there's some things that are just not acceptable,"
Vye said.

As well, some of the people RCMP believe responsible for the drug
homes - police estimated there are only about 12 individuals
operating drug houses in the city - have moved elsewhere, others are
in jail on a variety of offences and one man is dead.

"The drug community here isn't huge. Any of these houses that we went
to, the people are all connected. It's not difficult to pin down
who's who," Pears added.

Pears said drug dealers are being more imaginative to avoid detection
by police and trafficking charges if they are caught. Rather than
operate out of a home, dealers are using a handful of local hotels to
peddle their wares.

Dealers are also carrying less of a drug at any one time but
"reloading" more often, Pears added.

"They all carry cellphones and pagers anyway so if someone wants
something, they know how to get it. What does it matter whether
they're out of the house or not?"

Regardless, downtown residents are sleeping just a little bit easier
these days.

"We're definitely pleased with the RCMP's response. Members have put
in a lot of effort to clean things up down here. It's a big
improvement," said Vye.