Second Avenue Merchants Fed Up

In December, I blogged about a corner on Second Avenue in Saskatoon that seemed to gather more than its share of questionable characters. I’ve since seen two more arrests just while passing by. Now, it seems, the problem is getting worse.

At the beginning of this month, a group of six merchants in the immediate area spoke up: they’d finally had enough. According to them, the alleyways on this block have become a cesspool of human depravity: urination, defecation, drug use, loitering, etc, etc. These businesses are being held up, on one occasion by a 13-year-old. (Saskatoon Police never responded to that one, probably because they are overwhelmed by everything else happening in this town.) On one occasion, a street person attempted to go to sleep on the furniture in one store.

I find I have a personal connection to this group of businesses, since I once worked at a gift shop that occupied one of these buildings. That was back in the early 1990s, and it was no picnic even then. It wasn’t unusual to be tossing out drunks, even ones that found their way into the children’s area.

Now, however, these businesses are in danger of losing their customers. It’s not always safe on this street by day—see my entry for 14 December—and can be downright dangerous by night. I used to cut through an alley in this block on my bike in summer on my way home from work, but stopped when I routinely spotted people lying on the ground next to the dumpsters. Just lying there, chatting with one another—like it was a normal thing to do. As you can see from the photo, these lanes are barely clean enough for the rats.

That might be part of the problem. Maybe the city should sweep these areas clean daily, lose the garbage and the tossed-out furniture, etc. And pipe the appropriate music through the entire area. (Never mind the baroque, I’d recommend the new age mysticism of Robert Haig Coxon’s Cristal Silence series. Call me elitist, but I have seen it clear an area of everyone below a certain level of…well, let’s say ambition.)

I’ve been watching the area daily for a couple of years now, because I’m genuinely concerned about the way things are going. When the article came out in the newspaper (1 March), I was optimistic that things would get better. Surely this would strengthen efforts to clean the area up. What I’ve seen happening in the past two weeks, though, has not been encouraging.

Groups of unsavoury characters are larger, meaner looking, and more common.  Second Avenue’s 100 block north seems increasingly to be home to these, to the point where the problem is spilling over. While snapping shots for this blog (from the safety of our vehicle), Maya and I noticed a young couple walking through the alley between 1st and 2nd Avenues—just out for a Sunday stroll, only doing it for some reason of their own in a questionable back alley. Five minutes after that, we encountered them in the alleys between 2nd and 3rd. It appears that the downtown alleyways have become the streets of the Shadow People. It’s as if they are actively rebelling against efforts to keep the streets safe.

If the problem continues to worsen, some innocent person is going to get killed. Short of vigilantism, however, the average citizen has limited resources for dealing with it. One place to start might be the desk of the one person around who says he “most definitely” feels safe in the area: city councillor Darren Hill, who’s ward contains the neighbourhood in question. “Safety,” he told the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, “is an individual person’s perception of an area or certain persons around them.”

Um, no...no, it isn't. I can walk down any street with the perception that it's the safest in the world, but if the reality is far different, sooner or later I'm gonna get hurt. And it appears that six individual retailers lined up in a row all share a very different perception from Councillor Hill’s. Man, I am getting tired of seeing that kind of difference in this little town.

The public is not interested in perceptions, we are concerned about is the reality of what is going on. Mr. Hill needs to promote whatever action he can, quickly, to deal with this situation. (That is, after all, what we are paying him for.) He did also mention in the news that panhandling needs to be brought under control. That’s well and good, but there's bigger issues here.

Anyone else concerned about the situation? Let’s let Councillor Hill know about it:

Email:  darren.hill@saskatoon.ca
Home Phone:  (306) 384-9273
Cell Phone:  (306) 227-4322
Home Fax:  (306) 249-4469

What's Wrong With This Corner?

I’d really like to know what’s going on at this corner.

While great strides have been made downtown, we’ve also seen some ugly developments. Downtown lately seems to have striated. There are safe streets, and there are not quite so safe streets, and in Saskatoon they’re meters apart. Islands of “ick” have sprung up here and there, attracting a certain demographic class. In between are “normal” people, the downtown workers and tourists.

One such island can be found on the north-east corner of the intersection of 2^nd Avenue and 22^nd Street. For some reason, all kinds of street people seem to have declared this their turf. The benches in front of the McDonald’s are ones you want to avoid. Every day you see lowlifes congregating here, crowding nervous citizens off the sidewalk. A half-dozen times or more, I’ve seen the police in attendance.

It's not just the corner itself, exactly. On sunny days, I take a stroll during afternoon tea, and I’ve noticed quite a few things. There’s a great deal of foot traffic in the alleys between Second and Third Avenues, just north of 22^nd. Scruffy-looking people go in, and hand things to one another. It’s not unusual to see people lying amongst the dumpsters, feeling the effects of whatever they’ve taken. Disagreements and fights are common. I used to cut through there after work on my bike, but now I’ve had to stop.

One fine weekday afternoon this summer, all hell finally broke loose in the form of an all-out turf war. I was taking coffee in an empty lot, my face turned toward the sun. I ignored the yelling across the street behind me…nothing new, after all. Suddenly, there was a lot of yelling. I turned, and saw tourists and citizens up and down the street stopping to do the same. Everywhere, street people were running to and fro, or standing and shouting at others. Was it my imagination, or were some wearing a certain colour? And those ones over there…were they wearing a different colour? I reached for my cell to call the police.

“Thank you for your call. We are currently experiencing a higher-than-normal volume of calls. Please continue to hold…” Good grief—it reminded me of an American sitcom I’d seen, back in the 70s.

“Come on!” Across the street, a skinhead with a Mohawk haircut screamed for his friends to follow. He charged up the sidewalk, tourists diving for cover, a long metal bar in his hand. He and his posse raced into an alley even as others raced the hell out.

“Thank you for your call. We are currently experiencing a higher-than-normal volume of calls….”

 Finally, I got through, and the dispatcher already knew. “Can you see the police yet?” she asked.

“Just the one so far,” I answered. “He’s looking lonely, though. He’s standing by some unconscious guy laying in the middle of Second Avenue, completely surrounded by…concerned citizens.” By now, though, you could hear the sirens. The bike cops were first to arrive, zipping into the alley.

Not much else to report, really...except that whatever’s going on at this corner seems to be getting worse. Not sure why, unless it’s related to the transit mall at the north end of the block - or maybe the Welfare department half a block south?

My humble suggestion for improvement is Baroque or New Age music, piped through speakers from the McDonald’s. Done properly, this actually works. Done improperly, it does not. (Witness the transit mall experiment. Note to city workers: No, Shania Twain doth not Baroque music make.)

Still, that’s really only a bandage. Fixing whatever’s going on here will need a whole lot more than Mozart.

[Update, 4 October: It appears that the city has removed the benches from the northeast corner of this intersection, the corner in question. There are still questionable characters hanging about, but perhaps fewer than before. The ones who are left are content to sit on the landscaping dividers, or even directly on the sidewalk, while some have crossed the street to get to the other side. It remains to be seen what the long-term result will be.]

Another Visit From the Shadow People

In my last account of the Shadow People, I mentioned the fact that Saskatoon seems to have perhaps a bit more than its share of wackadoodles. I also mentioned the fact that I appear, of late, to have become a wackadoodle magnet. In this second account, I document a slice of human behaviour that was not only surreal in its overall weirdness, but which played, ironically, off my own midlife-crisis-generated paranoia. The following might best be read while listening to the theme from “The Twilight Zone”…

Wackadoodle 2
We’d returned from an enjoyable vacation in Vancouver, and the second I set foot at the Saskatoon airport, the feeling of weirdness returned. Two weeks away from this place, and one can see the difference. I’ll admit, I was feeling paranoid as hell, and for the purposes of this story, it’s important to keep that in mind. I stayed indoors for a day and a half.

The next night, I needed to make a very short trip downtown to pick up Maya from work. I got into my car, and got onto the street. Slowly, 40 to 45 klics, keeping an eye open for traffic. There was none. It was another Sunday night, and very little going on. I moved slowly into the downtown core. Take it slow, I told myself, Saskatoon has weirdness in it. Yes, again I’m being melodramatic, but it’s how I was feeling that night.

I picked up Maya from where she works, and started home again. Very little traffic as we crossed the Broadway Bridge. We stopped for the light at Main.

A horn sounded, four or five cars away. Someone yelled at someone else. Someone else yelled back. “Sounds like another road-rage,” my wife commented. “Yes,” I said, my stomach tightening. I hunkered down and stared straight ahead, hoping whatever violence might erupt stayed with the participants. Only a few blocks to go.

The light turned, and we moved on. We got onto 8th Street, where not much was happening at all. We turned right, alone, onto Clarence Avenue. No one else on the street, the entire way down Clarence. We passed a temporary illuminated sign placed there by the police. “YOUR SPEED:” it read, “44 km/h”.
We turned off Clarence onto our street. Just a few more blocks to go.

Suddenly, a car was right behind us—and I do mean right behind, tailgating dangerously. Here we go, I thought. And we’d almost made it, too. I felt the urge to speed up, to get him off our tail, and decided not to anyway. Let him pass if he wanted to. If he bumped us, it wouldn’t be me paying. We turned at last into our driveway, and the car behind us sped on.

As we got out of the car I saw the other vehicle make a u-turn at the end of the block. Great—someone from our very own street. We used to have such nice neighbours. A bizarre image entered my mind: what if he came back, and stopped to accuse us of something we didn’t do? I nearly laughed out loud. Preston, old boy, I thought, you really ARE getting paranoid.

The car came back. The driver lowered his window.

“Hey,” he called to us, “are you staying in for the rest of the night?”

I shaded my eyes against the streetlight. In the dim light, I thought I recognized my new next-door neighbour. “Yes,” I told him. “What’s up?”

“You’d better do just that,” the man ordered, obviously trying to sound like a cop. I instantly realized this wasn’t my neighbour, nor anyone I’d seen in my life. “I just clocked you doing 89. You’d better stay in tonight.”

The world lurched beneath my feet.

It’s rather hard to describe the whirlwind of thoughts and notions that swirled into and out of my mind in the next two seconds. Suffice to say, it was almost like the gods had read my very thoughts, and decided to play a twisted practical joke. It was, in fact, so bizarre a coincidence that I thought at first I thought I’d heard him wrong. And still might, were it not for Maya at my side to hear him too.

“Boy,” I might have responded, “are you barking up the wrong tree.” But I was still too steeped in the surrealism of the moment. There’s coincidence, and then there’s this.

“... uh …,” I responded instead. “…Er…”

“You’d better take care how you drive.” The man rolled up his window, glared at us, and moved his car slowly past our house. He took care for us to see him checking out the house and yard, soaking all of it in. Ominous. As slowly as he pulled away, however, it was still too fast for me to recover. By the time I thought of grabbing his plate number, to pass on to the real police, he was already too far away.

Back into his Shadow World.

We all have shadows in our own lives, and sometimes even the actions of the most obviously lost and confused Shadow People can cut through to our own insecurities. No doubt this poor soul was dealing with his own frustrations with the behaviour of his fellows, frustrations I can identify with. I’ve often felt like doing exactly as he did that night, just nailing someone verbally (and I’m grateful it was only that) for their anti-social behaviour—and doing 89 on a city street at night would certainly qualify as that. The difference, I suppose, is that I don’t—I try, through my own feelings of righteous anger, to contain myself.

And if ever I do begin to act like a guardian of the world, if I ever do start berating my fellow drivers for their actions…I hope I maintain the presence of mind to at least pick out the right vehicle.

Just Because You’re Paranoid: A Visit From the Shadow People

Saskatoon has Shadow People. And (gulp) I think they’re after me!

They walk among us, shoulder-to-shoulder, awash in the glow of a silver moon only they can see. They look like us, talk like us, and act like us—until the moment that they don’t. No, I’m not going off the deep end, and of course I’m being melodramatic. But Saskatoon has its Shadow People nonetheless. 

Though things are turning around now, let’s face it—during the past few years Saskatchewan bled an enormous amount of talent. Not everyone could make it in Alberta, though; some who tried turned back before the tide reversed. Others, devoid of anything like a polished résumé, or the life skills needed to fill one, never even tried. One could therefore be forgiven for concluding that the remaining population contains a larger than usual subset of wackadoodles—the Shadow People, itching to be discovered.

Lately, though, the Shadow People have discovered me.

For some males, part of the whole “second adolescence” thing (aka, middle age) includes a tendency to feel under attack, or paranoid. This, for me, is a whole new experience, though one that only seems to affect me here. I’ve crowded onto the Hong Kong subway at rush hour in Kowloon, enjoying every moment. I’m still at ease strolling down a crowded street in Vancouver, or exploring the busy markets of Ottawa. I’ve an experienced public speaker, having talked to hundreds without breaking a sweat. But every time I venture out in Saskatoon, something bizarre or unsettling happens. It’s making me reluctant to leave the house.

Lately, though, I don’t even have to do that. The Shadow People have found me.

I won’t get into the entire string of events that led to this conclusion, but I’ll describe the most recent. If anyone cares to offer a suggestion as to what could be happening, please feel free to comment or drop me a note.

First of all, it’s important to note that we live in a so-called “smart house”. Our home, whether we’re there or away, tends to think for itself. As a life-long techie, both amateur and pro, I’ve accumulated a bigger raftload of campy digital apparatus than an episode of “Doctor Who”. Lights and appliances and utilities operate themselves, or run by remote control, even across the ‘net. Every room has a motion sensor or two, and everything is run by a server. Any track from our 800 albums can be accessed for play in seconds. There are cameras, a fairly recent addition. And no, they were not put there in response to the wackadoodles, or because I’m paranoid. They were put there because, well…I’m a geek, they are gizmos, there was a sale, and therefore I needed one. Okay, eight. Most are invisible, even when you stand in the yard. And if you do stand in the yard, an alert sounds within. (Did I mention the sale on motion sensors?)

Wackadoodle 1

Last Sunday, at 10:30 pm, a dark sedan pulled up in front. Two youths got out, and walked in different directions. One went left, into my neighbour’s front yard, behind a tall cedar hedge. The other went right—right past our front gate and into and up our driveway. A pair of motion sensor lights illuminated the scene, going from half brilliance to full as the boy strode past our car. He didn’t blink, or look at the lights. He didn’t look at the house. He didn’t look at any camera, and in fact was likely unaware of their presence.

The temperature was -8ºC, with a wind chill of -14ºC. He wore a T-shirt and shorts. Right away, I knew I was looking at one of the Shadow People.

He reached the end of a partial fence separating our driveway from the front yard. He then turned and walked around the end, moving back now toward the street on the sidewalk at the side of our house. He reached the walk between the front door and the gate, and stopped in front of the steps. It’s important to note that he could have shortened the trip considerably by simply walking in through the front gate.

Two more bright motion-sensing lights came on, right beside him. He didn’t move, or look at the house. He just stood, a weird smile on his face, looking about the front yard, and staring toward the tall hedge toward my neighbour’s yard, where his buddy was hidden.

One of our dogs began to bark.

Apparently, for the Shadow People, terriers hold terror that security lights do not. He turned to run—back down the side of the house, around the fence, and the long way back out the driveway! He ignored the front walk and gate to the street, which would have got him out of there in half the time. Apparently, for the Shadow People, gates also hold terror. The whole time they were here—less than a minute—they touched nothing, looked at nothing, did nothing but act quite strange.

They got into their car and left. Back to their Shadow World.

In my next entry, I’ll describe another recent visit from the Shadow People. That one makes this look downright normal.

Saskatoon: #1 in Canada, #9 on the Planet

We’re Number One!

In something, at least. In its annual crime rankings survey, Maclean’s magazine has again placed Saskatoon near the top—in fact, at the very top—of the list of most dangerous cities in Canada. Big surprise to some, no doubt, but no surprise whatever to those like myself who work downtown, and who must dodge the dodgy on our way home after dark. 

I’ve had quiet evenings devoid of incident, long after sunset, strolling toward the Broadway Bridge. But I’ve also had harrowing nights of chance, winding my way between flashing blue lights and dangerous laughter filtering from unlit alleys, wondering if, at last, my turn had finally come round.

I’ve stepped over fresh ponds of blood.

Saskatoon, it turns out, is 163% above the national average crime rate. “Pish-posh,” cried my fellows, “numbers can be made to spell anything. Those ratings are per capita. We’re only high on the list because of the number of crimes versus our small population.” One could then find oneself explaining the basic concept of the words “per capita”. The brighter denizens at this point would begin to clue in, and would inevitably express surprise. Others have already experienced the violence first hand, and have concluded that they have less need of a pie graph than security cameras. In any case, the cry of disapproval was one made thinner still by the announcement a little bit later:

RealClearWorld.com, a blog of international news, came out with its list of the world’s most dangerous cities. Only one Canadian city made the grade—#1 in Canada, #9 in the world. You guessed it—Saskatoon.

On the other hand…
No doubt this can be contested, especially given the distance of the authors of this list. They even made a sarcastic reference to the tourism industry of Saskatchewan “(if there is such a thing)”. Maclean’s, one would expect, being closer, would have a much better grip on the handle. It claimed that the top three in Canada—Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and Regina—have much in common: a large gang presence feeding off the drug trade, a young transient population, a low level of education, substandard housing, high levels of unemployment, broken homes, addictions, and psychiatric issues”.

Good grief, Charlie Brown!

Where exactly did Maclean’s get those numbers? Not Statistics Canada, surely. For example, StatsCan found the unemployment rate in January to be 4.1% in Saskatchewan (a “have” province), just over half of the 8% in Maclean’s home province of Ontario (a “have-not” province). Presumably the rest of Maclean’s data can be found to be just as reliable. They might have found more solid ground with the observation of Calgary alderman and police board member Diane Colley-Urquhart, who claimed that many Eastern criminals have followed the wealth to the West.

One wonders…could those criminals have left behind a smattering of old Eastern establishment bitterness? It’s interesting to note, that of Maclean's top ten, only one (Halifax) can be found east of Manitoba.

A final observation: the RealClearWorld site offers up videos of each of the “dangerous” cities. Saskatoon’s was usurped from YouTube, and what a dangerous, scary place it looks like. Check it out. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Links: 
Maclean’s:  http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/03/05/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-canada/
RealClearWorld: http://www.realclearworld.com/lists/most_dangerous_cities/saskatoon.html
 
The lists:
Maclean’s 10 Most Dangerous Cities in Canada:
1. Saskatoon, SK
2. Winnipeg, MB
3. Regina, SK
4. Prince George, BC
5. Edmonton, AB
6. Chilliwack, BC
7. Halifax, NS
8. Vancouver, BC
9. Surrey, BC
10. Victoria, BC

RealClearWorld’s 10 Most Dangerous Cities in the World:
1. Mogadishu, Somalia (Civil War)
2. Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (Anarchy)
3. Linfen, China (Polution)
4. Caracas, Venezuela (Crime)
5. Detroit, USA (Crime)
6. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Crime)
7. Johannesburg, South Africa (Crime)
8. Norilsk, Russia (Pollution, Cold)
9. Saskatoon, Canada (Crime)
10. London, UK (Crime)