Pubdate: Sun, 29 Sep 2002
Source: Nanaimo Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2002 Nanaimo Daily News
Contact:  http://canada.com/nanaimo/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1608
Author: Nelson Bennett

RESIDENTS FIGHT TO RECLAIM CITY AREA

Another Harewood neighbourhood group is taking the law into their own hands 
because the law's hands are tied.

Residents of Princess Street are fed up with prostitution and drug dealing 
going on in what they describe as a crackhouse.

Frustrated with a lack of action from the city or police, they have banded 
together, and for the last three nights they have been hitting the streets 
with signs and cameras, warning Johns, drug dealers and their customers 
that they are being watched.

"We're hoping to drive them out," says Joanne Boyer. "Everybody's fed up."

The residents are following the example of a Kennedy Street group, which 
earlier this year succeeded in getting a crackhouse shut down.

Boyer worries about the effect the illicit activity on her street is having 
on her children. Recently, she noticed her three-year-old looking out the 
window.

"I asked him, ?What are you doing?' He said, 'Just watching the 
crack-heads.' Three years old!"

The house in question is half a block up the street from Bayview Elementary 
School.

Princess Street residents say the house has been a problem for about three 
years now. But it became intolerable a few months ago when a certain 
prostitute moved into the neighbourhood.

"She's a busy girl," Boyer said, "and she's psychotic."

The woman wanders the streets at all hours of the night and morning plying 
her trade, say neighbours, and makes a lot of noise while she's at it.

She also has a tendancy to use other people's yards. One neighbour found 
the woman in her yard with a customer.

"This prostitute was doing a guy right outside her window," Boyer said.

Residents have tried talking to the city, and call police on a regular 
basis. They always get the same story: Until police can catch someone 
committing a crime, there's not much they can do.

One neighbour, named Daniel (who did not want his last name used, for fear 
of retribution), isn't sure he buys that.

"If this happened in Hammond Bay, or any of these posh areas, it would be 
shut down," he said.

Residents in the area have begun taking down licence plate numbers of the 
Johns and drug dealers, and passing them to police, in the hope a few 
arrests will bring a halt to the illegal activity.

"We're going to do this as long as it takes," Boyer said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth