NANAIMO — Growing neighbour concerns around a drug consumption site near downtown have seen the City take action.
Councillors voted 7-1 in favour of placing a nuisance property designation on 264 Nicol St., the current home to the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users (NANDU), a volunteer-run consumption site which opened last year.
Residents around the site suggest NANDU and its clients are responsible for a spike in crime, property damage, open drug use and social disorder.
“Most people haven’t been speaking up in opposition to the drug user liberation movement simply because it, rightly, had never occurred to them that they would need to,” Collen Middleton, Nanaimo Area Public Safety Association, told councillors. “It is self evident why no-one would want to live to a site like NANDU because it is obvious what the consequences would be.
Middleton demanded Council make the designation “until the impacts to the surrounding neighbours are substantively and consistently mitigated.”
NANDU opened following $80,000 in provincial funding from the ministry of mental health and addictions, then under the guidance of Nanaimo MLA Sheila Malcolmson.
It was designed to provide a supervised site for people to use illicit drugs and access support services.
NANDU operates separate from the public health authority, Island Health, as well as the recently opened overdose prevention site which is run by the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Sara Edmondson, volunteer coordinator for NANDU, spoke to Council on behalf of the organization.
She said members of the network are unable to access support elsewhere and have few other options other than NANDU.
“They’ve had help from NANDU to navigate through the processes of finding placement and treatment, become sober and continue on to…living in stable living quarters as well as (finding) gainful employment.”
Edmondson said they have at least two volunteer staff on at any one time, including a “floater” who is responsible for walking through the surrounding neighbourhood and ensuring people aren’t being a disruption.
They will also clean up parking lots nearby at Dairy Queen and MGM Restaurant, both on Nicol St.
When people don’t abide by the rules, Edmondson said they’re dealt with.
“There have been a few incidents where police have been called and people have mentioned that these people have come from NANDU. We still don’t get any proof of that, we don’t get names of these people so we can ban them from the NANDU lot. It’s also like anything bad happens within five blocks of NANDU, we’re blamed for it.”
She estimated about 20 people have been banned from NANDU since it opened.
Her comments regarding disorder, as well as easy access for emergency services, were contradictory to feedback and video coun. Sheryl Armstrong said she’d received which showed first responders being blocked access.
Armstrong said it suggested some organizational issues.
“You can see our concerns, right? Different people, there’s different rules, different things and that’s one of my biggest concerns is that there’s no proper oversight and the public that live around there are paying the price for that.”
Coun. Ian Thorpe said the issues on the site were almost immaterial. He said countless complaints had been made, both City bylaw and Nanaimo RCMP officers had visited many times and the effects were more important, in this specific discussion, than the cause.
Thorpe said the RCMP had dealt with 14 complaints pertaining to the site since April 2022.
“What we’re really dealing with is what is the criteria for designation of a nuisance property? It doesn’t matter what business or activity is happening on the property, if there is a substantial identified negative impact to the neighbourhood…then it can and should be identified as a nuisance property.”
Multiple councillors challenged senior government and other organizations to contribute to the site.
Coun. Erin Hemmens said there seems to be a lack of oversight on NANDU’s operations.
“We have a funded service in the community that is funded provincially but without any chcecks and balances from the provincial government to say this is ok in community.”
Coun. Janice Perrino made the challenge directly to Island Health to help the group “to do the job that (NANDU’s) doing.”
Chairing Monday’s meeting in place of an absent Mayor Leonard Krog, coun. Tyler Brown cast the lone vote against the designation, stating the cost recovery method was “much ado about nothing.”
He said the province provided funding, but not enough to do it right, while other organizations have made promises in meetings which aren’t being kept in reality.
“When I look in the Chambers and who presents, I see members of the community, I see NANDU and I see none of those organizations taking responsibility for a service that is desperately needed and a model that is going to help people.”
The nuisance designation does not shut NANDU down, but sets a fee structure up for the use of City resources such as bylaw or RCMP visits for disorder.
Council also declared 430 Murray St. a nuisance property on an unrelated agenda item.
The property was the site of a violent stabbing in December with Nanaimo RCMP saying the site was well known to them.
“It has been on our radar for well over a year for general disorder, allegations of prostitution, drug activity, criminal activity — it’s causing havoc in the community, people are just trying to live their lives,” Reserve Cst. Gary O’Brien told NanaimoNewsNOW in December.
The vote for the Murray St. designation was unanimous and occurred with no discussion.
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