Pubdate: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC) Copyright: 2004 Vancouver Courier Contact: http://www.vancourier.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474 Author: David Carrigg, Staff writer COPS CRACKED DOWN ON CITY'S MEAN STREETS What began as a warning from Coun. Jim Green to rogue businesses in the Downtown Eastside became a reality over the course of 2004. Green, whose political power is generated through Downtown Eastside contacts, spoke to the Courier in February about plans to revitalize the troubled neighbourhood's flailing economy. "This is a warning, the first and only warning that we aren't going to tolerate any illegal activity in businesses down there," Green said. Police and city staff have known for a long time that many pubs in the Downtown Eastside tolerate people walking through the premises selling stolen property. Some corner stores and pawn stores in the area also move stolen property. A month after Green's warning the Vancouver Police Department launched an undercover operation to root out problem business premises in the neighbourhood. Labelled Operation Lucille, after B.B. King's favourite guitar, it culminated June 23 with the arrest of 29 people on more than 40 charges and a threat to close the notorious American and Marr pubs, several pawn stores, corner stores and one grocery store. The threat was made good a couple of months later when council's business licence review panel cancelled the business licences of all the problem premises recommended for closure during the operation. The police and city licensing staff have since cancelled or suspended the business licences of several more pubs and stores in the community, including one shop that sold crack pipe components. The VPD was also successful in breaking up the open drug market at the corner of Main and Hastings streets by reintroducing beat cops to the area, under the Citywide Enforcement Team banner. The CET, comprising about 60 cops, is still doing undercover work on problem businesses, rogue security guards and break and enter artists working the neighbourhood. However, as CET commander Insp. John McKay told the Courier this fall, the police can only do so much in an area which has created its own industry of non-profit societies providing services to the estimated 7,000 drug addicts in the community. An estimated $250 million a year from government and non-profit spending goes into the community, which with 16,000 residents comprises only a small part of the city's overall population. At street level, business seems to be improving and the $50 million funnelled into the area through the Vancouver Agreement is resulting in more services and some restoration of buildings. When news broke that the old Woodward's department store on the corner of Hastings and Abbott streets was bought by the city for development, the value of property on that block jumped 30 per cent overnight. The health crisis in the community hasn't abated, with HIV on the rise and tuberculosis and Hepatitis C still destroying lives. Seriously mentally ill and drug addicted people wander the streets, while government and private institutions continue to build local housing to cater to those people. Some mental health advocates criticize the apparent illogic of building housing for mentally ill, drug addicted people in an area frequented by drug dealers and well known sex trade strolls. As recently as this month, the provincial and federal government announced a 100-unit development for so-called "hard-to-house" adults one block away from the city's supervised injection site. Another development for mentally ill seniors is under construction a few blocks east in an area presently controlled by immigrant Vietnamese drug dealers. Violence also remains in the area, with an outbreak of knifings and gunplay among dealers during the fall as they fought over diminished territory. One man was beaten to death outside the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority's health contact centre alongside the Carnegie Centre. Plenty of time and money goes into harm reduction measures, such as the supervised injection site and needle exchange, but little has changed in the past year for people wanting treatment. Only time will tell whether government harm reduction, police enforcement and economic revitalization policies will change the face of one of the city's more historic and potentially beautiful neighbourhoods. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin