EXTRA INVESTIGATORS WILL GO AFTER SMALL-TOWN DRUG HOUSES

Angry Residents Tired Of Watching Their Neighbourhoods Ruined

Elise Stolte Journal Staff Writer

Alberta sheriffs are hiring eight new investigators to target drug
houses, allowing police to expand operations in rural and smaller
urban centres.

That's great news to Leah Brown, a Blackfalds resident who got so fed
up with drug dealing and guns she posted a spray-painted sign on a
nearby front lawn: "Help us remove this drug house from (the)
neighbourhood." The $1.2-million in extra funding was approved as
part of last week's provincial budget, and the department is already
in the hiring process, said spokeswoman Eilish Lemieux.

Fourteen investigators currently work out of the Edmonton and Calgary
offices, using civil law, surveillance and informal negotiation with
landlords or homeowners to shut down problem properties. They have
been mostly focused on the cities.

Brown said she's been calling RCMP almost five times a week for the
past couple of months about a problem house nearby that has blankets
over the windows, garbage in the backyard, and people dropping by at
all hours. They stay only five minutes -- just long enough to get the
dogs barking -- then drive away.

She suspects drugs.

"I'm talking anywhere from 14 vehicles a day. People coming and going
at all hours of the night." About a week ago, at suppertime, someone
drove up in front of the house and opened fire. The bullets shattered
windows in an empty car but no one was injured.

"I'm frustrated," she said.

The shooting happened on a Thursday but visitors kept coming by all weekend.

She and other neighbours had the signs up by last Monday, and
although bylaw officials forced them to take them down soon
afterward, the street has been quieter since, she said. "Since last
Monday, we've been able to go outside and feel comfortable." Brown
found out about the sheriffs' unit late last week and investigators
have made several trips to the street since, she said.

"I don't think they're going to be able to help us," she said, simply
because visitors have stopped dropping by the house, for now. "But
I'm fully confident they'll be able to help someone else." Provincial
sheriffs started targeting drug houses when the Safer Communities and
Neighbourhoods Act came into force Oct. 1.

Between then and March 31, investigators received 269 complaints and
concluded 205 files, usually by working out the problem with
landlords or owners.

Only one file, in Edmonton, advanced to the courts. A judge granted a
community safety order, which will force the homeowner to move within
several months, said Lemieux.

"It's been excellent, the number of complaints we've been able to
resolve," said the program's director Neil LeMay. "Of course, new
(files) come in every day." Sometimes the offenders will move down
the street and start the problems all over again, but at least
investigators are familiar with them, LeMay said.

Even in safe communities problems can escalate quickly, said
Blackfalds mayor Melodie Stol, who called the hiring of new sheriffs
excellent news.

"There's people out there who think they can take advantage of a
smaller centre," she said. "People in the bad element can't just go
hide in a small town and get away with it."