ROYAL CITY CRACKS DOWN ON TRAFFICKERS

Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun There's a new neighbourhood officer in new
west: It's New West, Not Wild West: That's the message Constable Grant
Gottgetreu is bringing to Columbia Street as he gives a man, whose
face is masked for legal reasons, a ticket for jaywalking.

Any drug dealer taking a wrong step on New Westminster's Columbia
Street can expect the full force of the law to come crashing down on
them, a police officer in the Royal City says.

He backed up his claim Wednesday by issuing a Honduran man known to be
a drug trafficker an $86 ticket for jay-walking.

"The whole idea is, you jay-walk, you get a ticket, you walk against
the walk sign, you get a ticket," Constable Grant Gottgetreu said.

"The whole idea is zero tolerance. 'You're not welcome down here' is
the message," Gottgetreu said, adding the "bulk" of drug dealers in
the city are Honduran.

"Every Honduran that I have checked down here has either been already
charged for drugs or they're currently charged. Every one of them, and
I'm not fabricating," he said.

Gottgetreu is the new neighbourhood officer on Columbia Street. Since
he started walking the beat a week-and-a-half ago, merchants are
breathing a sigh of relief and drug dealers are finding his constant
presence bad for business, he said.

"It's not going to be comfortable for the drug dealers to maintain
their drug trafficking trade here because there's always going to be
someone in their face," Gottgetreu said.

"If the druggies think I'm here for a short time, they're in for a
surprise," he said, adding his assignment will last at least two years.

Cafe owner Monica Brosch said: "They tried bicycle cops but that
didn't work, but Grant's great."

And since a three-day police sweep that netted 22 arrests last
weekend, the dealers have stayed away, said Brosch,

But Brosch's enthusiasm for Gottgetreu's efforts isn't matched by city
and police officials who say they have failed to stem the tide of
crack cocaine that is flooding into the city through dealers operating
on Columbia Street.

"The situation is becoming unbearable in the downtown area," Mayor
Helen Sparkes said Tuesday. "The drug dealers [are acting as if they]
own the streets."

She said the number of dealers has actually increased since the police
sweeps began.

Across the street at the head office of the Mr. Mike's restaurant
chain, employee Lindsey Flintoff said she has had her wallet stolen
twice, undoubtedly by drug dealers who roam the streets.

"You and I can stand out here for 15 minutes and you'd see a drug
deal," said fellow employee Bill Outhwaite.

The city's merchants are striving to deal with the drug problem
outside their businesses before matters get worse and reach the level
of the drug-infested streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, said
Netty Tam, the executive director of the city's Business Improvement
Association.

"We have to address the issues early because we do have a nice
community in New Westminster and we want to maintain that, not only
for our merchants, but for our residents," Tam said.

The merchants want the courts to adopt strict measures in dealing with
drug dealers who often return to the same spot where they were
arrested, regardless of court-imposed area restrictions, Tam said.

"We've started a petition to lobby the attorney-general's office that
the courts have to have zero tolerance," she said.

"These issues do impact the quality of life and we really want to
strive to have that quality."

The Business Improvement Association, along with the police and the
city, is also considering a citizens' patrol, security cameras, and
the removal of planters on the streets to ensure the dealers have

fewer places to hide drugs, she said.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady