DRUG SIGNS SHELVED WHILE PROVINCE INVESTIGATES

Town Hall meeting set for April 22, 7 p.m., at Nativity Hall, 301
McConnell Ave.

The city's controversial drug search warrant sign program is on hold
after local police recently submitted their side of the story to the
provincial privacy commission.

Chief Dan Parkinson of the Cornwall Community Police Service said
only "a half-dozen" of the real estate-like signs were planted in
Cornwall before he halted the initiative not only to appease civil
libertarians, but to get feedback from the community in the form of a
town hall style meeting.

"It's out of an abundance of caution and sensitivity," said
Parkinson, who launched the sign program in January to visibly
publicize execution of drug search warrants.

The catalyst for the search warrant signs was actually town hall
meetings held more than a year ago.

The message Parkinson got from the community was mainly a question:
What are police doing to stop crime?

Parkinson likened the sign concept to police news releases sent to
media, but despite the comparison, the privacy commission launched an
investigation into the signs potential violation of residents' civil rights.

The signs included the address where the warrant was executed.

At first it was placed on the property, but it was later moved toward
the boulevard to deter conflict, Parkinson said.

While local police wait for a ruling on the signs' legality from the
province, they want to hear from local residents about the
effectiveness of the signs, as well as the east-end police station
that's been located near the heart of the city's drug activity for
the last year.

VALID TOOL?

"We want to know if it's a valid way for us to communicate with them
about what we're doing," the chief said of the signs.

"If they say 'yes', that's immeasurable to us. If they say 'it
doesn't matter', then that significantly weakens the strategy."

Parkinson said police erected at least one drug search warrant sign
in the city's west end.

The chief also said the police service didn't monitor how long each
sign stayed up before someone took it down.

The town hall meeting is set for April 22, 7 p. m., at Nativity Hall,
301 McConnell Ave.

"On the face of it, it strikes me that it is an extraordinary step,"
Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian said in
January after the first sign was erected.

One of the primary concerns raised by the commissioner's office and
civil liberty advocates is that the owner or occupant of the property
may or may not be the suspect.

"The property owner could be made to look like a drug dealer when
they've done nothing wrong," Graham Norton, a spokesperson for the
Canadian Civil Liberties Association, told the Standard-Freeholder in January.

The police purchased 30 of the signs, about the same number of drug
search warrants Cornwall police execute each year.

The signs have only be erected for drug search warrants, not firearms
or stolen property.

The police strategy was backed by the Cornwall Community Police
Services Board, the city and the mayor, said Denis Thibault, a city
councillor and chair of the police board.