Former attorney general to curb panhandling, drug sales for 2010

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan has tapped former BC Attorney General Geoff Plant to clean up Vancouver proper in preparation for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. The Project Civil City initiative aims to reduce homelessness, open drug dealing, and panhandling by 50% for the Games.

Said Sullivan:

"I'm very conscious that in 2010, the world will be arriving. It's very important for us to use the Olympics and Paralympic Games as a catalyst to improve our city."

Plant said that good work has been done on "housing, drug addiction, mental health and enforcement," and said he will try to "bring this work together and knit it into a cohesive, integrated implementation plan."

Critic David Eby of the Pivot Legal Society called the plan an attempt to "harass poor people in the Downtown Eastside and get them off the streets and into other neighborhoods and into other cities before the Olympics."

Well, yeah, duh.

Source: SeattlePI.com