Dang Kids Get Off My Lawn

Maybe I am getting old.

Firstly I should say, I support the legalization of most drugs and certainly that legalization would probably stop what I am about to complain about.

3 years ago we moved to a quiet street closer to where I work. The most attractive feature of our new house is the green space across the street from us. From our front window we look onto a grass field, trees in the background and behind that a drop down to the river. We are a touch possessive of our green space even though it belongs to the city.

A snake seems to have invaded our paradise.

For the last couple of months, a couple of times a week around midnight we are awakened by voices in the park across the street. Frequently there is a car parked in front of our house with the motor running most of the time. We hear loud conversations, young men shouting "yeehaw", girls giggling.

It took me a while to figure this out, but it became quite clear. Someone is selling drugs in the park across from our house. Either they hang out there possibly in the woods above the river or our street has been chosen for the transaction being out of the way with little traffic.

After the most recent disturbance, I decided that maybe the police should know about this. Not that I oppose young adults buying drugs. Just not in front of my house.

Police as we know love to enforce drug laws. They are quite happy to attribute just about every crime to drugs. I figured they would jump at the opportunity to bust someone. Actually I just hoped that they would drive a police car down our street around midnight for a couple of nights in a row and get the people to move their business somewhere else.

So the next morning after my most recent interrupted sleep, I phoned the cops. It took me a while. I tried to phone my "community" police station which seems to be nowhere near our community and was directed to the Crime Stoppers snitch line. Obviously I had no one to snitch on so I tried a different number and actually got to talk to a cop. I gave him my address, explained the situation and asked if he could help.

What I got was a bunch of excuses about how busy they are most nights and how it would be totally impractical to patrol our neighbourhood. He did say that if I went to my local police station and filed a complaint in person, I might be able to talk to a sergeant. I said,"How about I contact my city councilor", which is what I did.

Of course like most things, there have been no more late night interruptions since I complained. I suspect that the local drug dealer has figured out that eventually someone would complain to the police who would actually patrol the area.

What has he been smoking?