Pubdate: Wed, 04 Jul 2007 Source: Peninsula News Review (CN BC) Copyright: 2007 Peninsula News Review Contact: http://www.peninsulanewsreview.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1373 Author: Tom Fletcher Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites) SUMMER IN THE CITY, NOT QUITE SO PRETTY Community Courts Bus Fare Protest The "honour system" has finally been abandoned on the Greater Vancouver buses. The establishment of "fare paid zones" beyond the driver's seat and at least the theoretical appearance of someone to check tickets is an effort to stem the problem of people refusing to pay and assaulting drivers who remind them the ride isn't quite free. It seems that once a city reaches a certain size, it doesn't have enough honour left for honour systems. Surveys indicated that Ottawa doesn't yet have bus anarchy, but Toronto does. A relieved Vancouver bus driver interviewed on TV said being spit on wasn't the worst of it. He's also been punched, kicked and pulled from his seat while the bus was moving. Here in Victoria the Canada Day fireworks have been known for a finale involving drunken brawls on the upper deck of those London-style buses. (No reports yet of fights breaking out in horsedrawn carriages or rickshaws, but with international soccer matches in town I'm not ruling it out.) Victoria's just reaching the critical mass where such night-time public events are surrendered and the downtown streets given over to purveyors of the nightly buffet of blood, pee and pavement pizza. Then there is the illegal drug problem. Victoria's mayor still believes in something called a "safe injection site," as the city looks for a new home for its blight of a "needle exchange program." Nanaimo's pilot project to hand out crack pipes has sputtered out like a spent Bic lighter, due to threats from ungrateful recipients. The Capital Regional District, which still can't keep its emergency radio system working, is right on the ball. They've just instituted a crackdown, not on crack, but on outdoor patio smoking. New provincial regulations are being worked out now to bar smoking around doorways and windows as of next year, but that's not far or fast enough for some urban social engineers. Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan is offering a bit of fresh air on the drug problems that plague his city. He's moving on from the "safe injection" and "needle exchange" stopgaps that promote continued abuse. Give the hardcore addicts legal pills that approximate the ups and downs of cocaine and heroin, he suggests, and at least they have a hope of getting off the mean streets. But the most sensible strategy is coming from Vancouver-Burrard MLA Lorne Mayencourt, who earlier pioneered the radical notion that pedestrians, like bus drivers, shouldn't have to put up with being threatened or assaulted. He has been touring the province to promote the model of the San Patrignano treatment community in Italy, a remote self-contained rural facility where people can check in and stay for three to five years, drug-free and working at a real job. It has more than 2,000 people in voluntary attendance, and claims a 75 per cent success rate. Mayencourt has identified a preferred location, a former radar station called Baldy Hughes located 30 km southwest of Prince George. It offers a dormitory, mobile home pads, welding and woodworking shops, a bowling alley, curling rink and gym. Prince George already has its share of big-city problems, being a service centre for the medical, social and penal needs of the province's north. But it too could benefit from this refreshing approach to the low-level crime, panhandling and prostitution that is intertwined with drugs in urban centres. There are other remote locations around the province that could take a similar approach. It seems like a better idea than waiting for Vancouver or Victoria to develop something that actually has a chance of working. Vancouver is the site of another pilot project, a community court. Attorney General Wally Oppal has high hopes for this project, which has hearings underway led by provincial court judge Thomas Gove. The court will deal with the break-ins and other low-level offences that form the revolving door for drug addicted repeat offenders. The idea is to direct offenders to treatment, housing and employment services to break the cycle of crime and drugs. If it's successful, community courts would be established in other B.C. centres. While this approach has had some successes in the United States, the U.K and Australia, I have to wonder how effective it will be if it keeps people in and around Vancouver, or New Westminster or Surrey. Perhaps a solution lies in combining the community court or drug court model with Mayencourt's suggested retreat. Getting people away from the open drug and sex bazaar that is tolerated in major urban areas, and doing it for a period of years, might make the difference. "Activists" in Vancouver were out to protest a six per cent increase in transit fares last week. That's two bits for a one-zone fare, or 10 to 15 cents for those who buy passes. These sorts of protests are generally orchestrated by a group that styles itself the "bus riders' union." They want you to think they represent the working poor, but these are the maggots who came to prominence by breaking up transit authority meetings with threats, shouts, and the general miasma of anarchist behaviour that's become commonplace in Vancouver. Their antics are eerily similar to those of the "anti-poverty activists" who periodically manufacture a confrontation at Olympic events. They want free housing, transit, food, drugs, whatever. Increasingly, they get it. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom