I work downtown on the electrical system and the amount of needles around the Chumir that are dropped in man holes is staggering. We pick them up on a daily basis. Its horrifying to be working away, look up and notice a needle dangling off of debris/concrete inside a man hole or vault above your head.
This program puts me and my co workers at risk all so an addict can get their fix. They're ####ing given access to sharps containers too but not everyone chooses to use them. I'd hate to see a co worker get poked and diseased in the name of political correctness.
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Originally Posted by oilboimcdavid
Eakins wasn't a bad coach, the team just had 2 bad years, they should've been more patient.
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Evan Woolley has proposed a response to the issues around this place. Here's his Facebook note about it.
Spoiler!
Sheldon M. Chumir Supervised Consumption Services Notice of Motion
EVAN WOOLLEY·TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2019
I have spent most of my life in and around the Beltline. I’ve lived, worked, and played in the neighbourhood. I know its ins and outs better than most. Since the early 1990s the Beltline has transformed from a rough-and-tumble part of town to one of the great community revitalization stories in Canada. Despite the shrinking investment across Downtown, the Beltline is where cranes continue to work and development endures. People keep moving to the Beltline because it’s Calgary most vibrant neighbourhood.
In October of 2017, I stood in front of our citizens with the Chief of Police, the Mayor, the Minister of Health and the President of the Beltline Neighbourhoods Association, and said that opening the Supervised Consumption Services (SCS) facility at the Sheldon M. Chumir Clinic was important to the city and the community. We faced a public health crisis that has taken some 800 citizens’ lives in Calgary in the last three years. This crisis continues. The opioid crisis has caused unspeakable damage to families and communities, without prejudice.
But we also remained committed to keeping the Beltline safe and I stand here today to acknowledge that we have failed in that commitment. That ends today.
Over the last number of months, I have watched with growing worry the increase in crime and disorder concerns in the neighbourhood. I have seen them myself and have been hearing from neighbours, businesses, and community organizations who live in and love the area. People are feeling afraid and unsafe and that’s unacceptable.
The report made public today, Crime & Disorder near the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre’s Supervised Consumption Services Facility, validates what I have been hearing on the ground. The increases in crime and disorder can be attributed to: an increase in use at the SCS facility, shift from opioid use to methamphetamine use, as well as an increase in drug trafficking at or near the SCS Facility.
We must take immediate action to restore community safety and, after many discussions with key stakeholders, I have submitted an urgent Notice of Motion on February 4th to respond to this issue. Please click here to read it: Responding to SCS Concerns NoM.pdf
This response is focused directly on community and public safety concerns validated in the report with regards to disorder, drugs, violence, break & enters, and vehicle crime. I am asking for City Council to direct administration to work with key stakeholders, including Alberta Health Services and the Calgary Police Service to take immediate action to increase public safety. My 12-point action plan includes:
1. An expanded Downtown Outreach Addiction Partnership (DOAP) Program dedicated to the Beltline
2. Additional onsite psychologists and psychiatrists that specialize in addictions and mental health within SCS Facility
3. Development of comprehensive treatment strategies associated with the SCS Facility
4. Review of operations at the SCS Facility to address intake and outpatient optimization
5. Increase mobile AHS support staff to allow for better monitoring in and around the SCS Facility
6. Creation of a Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) Improvement Fund with a terms of reference
7. Resources to support the Beltline Neighbourhood Association, 4th Street Business Improvement Area, and Victoria Park Business Improvement Area in order to incentivize community-driven programming at Central Memorial Park and other potential community space in the vicinity
8. Review of needle box locations
9. Implementation of daily needle debris clean-ups within a 250 metre radius of the SCS Facility
10. Increased Corporate Security at City-owned properties within a 400 metre radius around SCS Facility
11. Implement increased security surveillance at Central Memorial Park
12. Engagement at the SCS Community Liaison Committee on the topic of a permanent and centralized police presence in the Centre City
Furthermore, my Notice of Motion formally requests that the Calgary Police Commission ask the Calgary Police Service to attend the February 13 meeting of the Standing Policy Committee on Community and Protective Services to provide information and answer questions on the Calgary Police Services continuing strategy to address social disorder, crime, and violence near the SCS facility and Centre City. This will also be an opportunty for members of the public and community stakeholders to voice their concerns directly to Council.
I believe that the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre’s Supervised Consumption Services facility is an important pillar in a broader set of programs, policies, and practices to address this crisis. We will only be successful if those citizens who share a community with this facility are safe.
Looks like Provision (restaurant in Central Memorial Park) was a casualty. That's a shame - they've really had to bear the worst of it as far as businesses go.
Looks like Provision (restaurant in Central Memorial Park) was a casualty. That's a shame - they've really had to bear the worst of it as far as businesses go.
And unfortunately as these issues persist, and it gets more negative coverage, more people are likely to avoid the area, more business are likely to shutter and new ones are increasingly less likely to reopen in their place.
Calgary better get a grip on this, real quick, or we risk creating a giant dead zone in what should be one of the nicest parts of the inner city.
Honestly that's calculus that our society refuses to ever look at anymore. Every life, no matter what is worth infinity tax dollars and any cost spread among the rest of the public to accommodate is zero. That's how we look at everything.
We don't like to acknowledge that trade-offs even exist, let alone take the next step and make tough decisions about those trade-offs.
In world with limited health care and police resources, it might be difficult to justify devoting increasing amounts to dealing with someone's 4th or 12th or 20th overdose. But questioning that makes people feel heartless. Easier to pretend we have infinite resources and everything can be a win-win.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Looks like Provision (restaurant in Central Memorial Park) was a casualty. That's a shame - they've really had to bear the worst of it as far as businesses go.
Yeah, they were one of the first ones to speak up back in July about it. They were shouted down by the "but this study shows there is no crime increase and something something nimby" crowd.
Frankly, I doubt much will happen. The NDP have already renewed their location even in the face of the public confirmation of the crime increase that they've been denying for a year. They'll discourage reporting or adjust stats to fudge and say: "See, crime has dropped 50% since yesterday and so much progress has been made & 800 more overdoses by the same 20 people have been prevented again".
People and businesses in the area will get fed up and continue to leave.
I've already stopped going into the area if I can avoid it. It's really disappointing to see it all happening in real time.
The co-owner of Provision, a restaurant situated across the street from the SMCHC in Central Memorial Park, says his business has seen a steady decline in customers following the influx of visitors to the supervised consumption site.
“This is my last week of lunches here,” said Kirk Shaw on Wednesday. “Last summer I would have three waitresses and myself running flat out, doing 70 to 80 covers a lunch. I’m down now to one waitress doing maybe 20. We did nine last Wednesday.”
“I’m in the downtown core and I expect a certain level of this behaviour but the difference between this year and last year is like night and day. It’s been in effect for about eight months and we’re seeing absolutely, catastrophic effects of their public health policy.”
“The harm reduction strategy shouldn’t go away, it just has to be revamped. It really needs a hard, hard shakeup. It might be working for the junkies but it’s not working for anyone else in the neighbourhood.”
Well, they just rubber stamped the renewal of the site for another year just today.
To be clear, 'they' means Health Canada. Not the City and not the Provincial Government. And the renewal is conditional on some issues being addressed and will be reviewed in four months.
While I'm generally in favor in principal I do wonder about how this facility operates. If it a supervised safe injection site then how are needles getting outside? Maybe start with changing how this facility operates and not allow needles to leave the building. When I see the word supervised I was assuming there were actually staff watching what was happening.
The crime part I see as a different issue than the littering and needs a different solution but I cannot see why the needle issue cannot be resolved fairly simply.
While I'm generally in favor in principal I do wonder about how this facility operates. If it a supervised safe injection site then how are needles getting outside? Maybe start with changing how this facility operates and not allow needles to leave the building. When I see the word supervised I was assuming there were actually staff watching what was happening.
The site provides a safe place for consumption, and staff to help when/if they OD and all that good stuff...but they also give out needles that folks can take away and use. You don't HAVE to use the site. You can show up, ask for needles, walk a block away and shoot up. While it is a safe consumption site, those who go to it are not required to stay there and shoot up.
If the needles aren't allowed to leave the building (which I think is a good idea), then less people will use the site, and we're back to questioning it's worth in general.
And the renewal is conditional on some issues being addressed and will be reviewed in four months.
Given it was allowed to operate for more than a year without addressing the obvious escalating crime and continued neighborhood concerns I don't have much in the way of confidence in their review.
If the police hadn't finally released a report on the state of affairs and it being pushed in the news, the various levels of governance would still be doing nothing but patting their own backs on opening the injection site.
If it a supervised safe injection site then how are needles getting outside?
I believe a part of the site is a handing out Needle Distribution program. Which makes the idea of a "bounty"/deposit of needles for money a literal Cobra Effect.
A bunch of posts back, showed the needles and crime up in Edmonton. But I hadn't seen this article originally.
Interesting how they rammed this through without consultation and are now claiming that they did not need to consult, and that there is no crime. But even if there is an increase in crime, you can't close them because it'll hurt the people injecting.
Businesses and residents in Chinatown want two of the three supervised drug consumption sites in their area closed, claiming they weren’t properly consulted prior to the decision to open the sites.
Their argument, as well as that of the Access to Medically Supervised Injection Services Edmonton (AMSISE), is that consultation with third parties, like the Chinatown business association, was not outlined as a requirement when the legislation for applications of consumption sites was drafted by the federal government.
Edward Molstad, the lawyer representing the business association, counter-argued that legislation does require AMSISE to submit “expressions of community support or opposition” when submitting their applications. But he said the Chinatown community was not consulted properly, mainly due to what they claim is a language barrier, where many members of the community only speak Chinese.
“You can’t have community support or opposition without talking to the community,” Molstad told the court.
He also countered the claim of an increase in crime, saying it is purely based on speculation and that no concrete data exists to prove it as an issue.
Elford told the court that if speculation on crime rates is the basis of the business association’s concerns regarding the consumption sites, then the process of approving such sites would be greatly derailed. “It’ll never get done,” Elford said.
“Now is not the time to re-argue,” Nathan Whitling, the lawyer representing AMSISE, told the court.
Desperate and angry residents who live near the city’s only safe drug-consumption site queued at city hall Wednesday to vent their concerns about rising violence and crime around the Safeworks facility at the Sheldon Chumir Centre.
“We’re basically at war right now,” said Murray Shuturma, president of the Park 300 condo. Shuturma said his building, which looks over Memorial Park across the street from the Chumir centre, is broken into on a daily basis. “Nobody is protecting us.
“We’ve had somebody chased with a shotgun in the building,” Shuturma said. “We have people shooting up (in) the vestibule of our building. People are afraid to come in and people are afraid to go out.”
Story after story at the emotionally charged meeting saw neighbours and business owners — some of them initially supportive of the supervised consumption site — describe increasing frustration with a perceived lack of concern from authorities.
Residents told stories about finding overdose victims in the street, aggressive encounters outside their homes and repeated thefts from vehicles and storage sheds. Several neighbours said their messages and phone calls to AHS have gone unanswered.
One incident required the replacement of a large double-pane window for $1,400: “They walked across the street, broke a window with a club that they took out of their jacket (and) grabbed a book and walked away,” Lawrence said, adding the store has since spent $7,000 on security cameras.
“This is no way to live your life,” said Coun. Evan Woolley, following an unsettling story about residents coming upon a woman in the throes of a psychotic episode in a blood-stained condo stairwell. “This is nerve-racking stuff.”
Calgarian Sherry Crawford told council she fears for her daughter and granddaughter's safety living in the area.
"Why should an addict's desire to take illegal drugs, often associated with criminal behaviour, take precedence over my daughter's desire for a safe neighbourhood in which to live and work and raise her children?" Crawford asked council.
Between the time the site opened in October 2017 and the end of 2018, it had responded to 802 overdoses involving 228 visitors, and saw more than 54,000 client visits.
Let's not forget the City Council meeting today where Sean Chu called addiction a "choice" and asked the public to show their hands for who wants a "shooting gallery". This in the face of Evan Woolley who lost his brother to addiction.
Let's not forget the City Council meeting today where Sean Chu called addiction a "choice" and asked the public to show their hands for who wants a "shooting gallery". This in the face of Evan Woolley who lost his brother to addiction.
I hate to generalize but sometimes the way different people look at this situation and epidemic is through their own cultural lens's. Right or wrong people of ethnic backgrounds or people who's parents are immigrants generally have a lower tolerance for this type of behavior. They take a more personal responsibility and a stance that this is the user's issue to deal with and figure out as opposed to the innocent victims who may be paying a higher price in terms of crime and social decay.
Regardless of the situation, the city, the province and the country need to deal with this entire drug epidemic better overall. People can suffer from addiction's issues and I really do sympathize with people's who's lives have been destroyed by drugs, I see it all the time as we have a family business in the Beltline but we also need to take into consideration the real destruction that is happening to the people and the business's there as well.
I read about the Councilor's brother and that sounds like a heart breaking situation, far too many lives are getting ruined and it's a shame.
What would you call someone who is doing drugs and breaking into cars?
The first part of the sentence is 100% correct, they are drugged up.
And if the article was about random break ins and said “low lifes break into cars in broad daylight” I doubt you would have an issue
These are drugged up low lifes committing crimes . Have we swung so far in the opposite direction of acceptance we can’t even calls a spade a spade anymore
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Location: Close enough to make a beer run during a TV timeout
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Originally Posted by Fuzz
Oh come on, Sean Chu was a cop. He should know better. No excuses for that.
I ask the following in the hopes of understanding the situation a little better. Don't most of these addicts start out by taking drugs by choice? Or are we talking about people who already had serious mental issues, and began to self medicate?
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