Proposed drug injection site in Toronto raises security concerns among locals

According to a recent 680 News report, the businesses are worried about that the safety of the area might deteriorate once the injection site will be set up by the government at the Queen West Community Health Centre (CHC) at Bathurst and Richmond streets.

Patrick Penman, co-owner of a bar and restuarant situated near the future injection site, The Football Factory, said he has noticed a change in the people frequenting the area and also revealed one of them even threatened him.

Penman was quoted by 680 News as saying: "He threatened to cut the heads off of the people sitting on the patio and then when I told him that was not a good idea, then he threatened to cut my head off. He punched me in the face, split my lip open, cut my face."

"He was tasered 12 times by cops and kept getting back up and he injured two officers in the process," he added.

Penman said ever since the federal government announced that the Queen West Community Health Centre (CHC) will be one of the safe injection sites in Toronto, things have started to change.

"There’s been a turnover with the local drug dealers. The local drug dealer, or that group, had been here for a decade" he said.

“He was murdered on the corner, and there’s a new, much more savvy, group that has come down. It’s almost like, you go where the business is. They came into the neighbourhood to take over the neighbourhood, waiting for the influx of people coming to use the safe injection sites,” Penman was quoted by 680 News.

Other area businesses claimed that the new dealers of the block have started to use the vacant properties in the street for cooking drugs and bringing in sex-trade workers.

Penman and others in the area wants a 24-hour security outside the proposed injection site and also an installation of a CCTV camera.

Area councillor Joe Cressy, however, said that police is working on the security measures though denied any claim that states the crime rate is on the rise.

Cressy said: "The research has shown that when safe injection sites go in, local crime and public drug use goes down because it moves inside."

"That doesn’t mean that we don’t have safety and security protocols in place. We’re working really closely with the Toronto Police Service and the local division to have them in place 24 hours," the councillor added.

Several drug overdosed deaths had occurred in recent times which prompted Toronto to take the decision of setting up three safe injection centres with an aim to curb the loss of lives.

In the last week of July, twenty people were reportedly overdosed with the drug intake while four others died in downtown Toronto.

Three more people lost their lives in the Durham region on August 12.

Apart from Queen West CHC, other injection site will be built up at South Riverdale Community Health Centre near Carlaw Ave.

(Reporting by Souvik Ghosh)