SCAN unit shuts down northside drug house for second time

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on May 5, 2022.

Herald photo by Al Beeber Crews work on boarding up a northside drug house which has been closed for the second time in a year.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

A northside drug house was shut down Wednesday for the second time in a year. And this time, it may be permanent.
The residence at 124 19 St. N. was boarded up, fenced and had its locks changed yesterday after the Alberta Sheriff’s Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods unit successfully obtained another Community Safety Order.
And with the property owner’s bank foreclosing on its mortgage, that means the home will be put up for sale.
Mike Letourneau, manager of SCAN South, said on Wednesday that Alberta Health Services deemed the home unfit for habitation last May but after the home was shuttered for 90 days following SCAN action, the home owner didn’t comply.
“Alberta Health Services has been instrumental in getting us to where we are today,” he said. “Nobody was to occupy,” he said, adding “the home owner doesn’t want to obey court orders is the bottom line.”
Last year’s closure which started on May 11 lasted until Aug. 2 and activity was quiet for three months until November when residents began complaining again to law enforcement of activity.
It wasn’t as bad as previously but SCAN knew activity was slowly picking up again.
In collaboration with city police, SCAN attended the property and conducted an investigation.
Over about four months, SCAN acquired evidence of drug activity occurring again and the frequency of people at the property was similar to what it had been in the past, Letourneau said.
The property was “up and running again,” said Letourneau as crews from a company worked to secure the home just north of the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks.
LPS had previously responded to a violent assault where someone came onto the lawn and threw a rock into a window. There were needles and drug paraphernalia strewn throughout the property and the neighbourhood, he said.
After applying to the Court of Queen’s Bench, SCAN got another Community Safety Order in April which will remain in effect for one year like the one issued in 2021. The property will also remain closed for 90 days and will remain under observation.
“Essentially, what we have here is a home owner who is allowing drug activity to occur on this property,” said Letourneau, adding needles that were picked up half filled a bucket.
“He is either unwilling or unable to do the right thing with the property,” he said.
This time the bank has gone to a foreclosure and was successful in obtaining an order to allow it to sell the property. SCAN will work with the bank so they can come in with realtors and anyone else interested for the purposes of selling the property.
“Neighbours are fatigued, they’re living in fear, they’re living with a drug property and have been since 2020” so law enforcement hopes this will be the final solution to issues there, Letourneau added.
“The neighbours and the community have been dealing with this drug property for a very long time unfortunately. In collaboration with, of course, the complainants and the Lethbridge Police Service we attended court in May of 2021 and we were successfully in obtaining a community safety order so that allowed us at the time to do a 90-day closure at this property, vacate everybody out of the property, board the property and of course put a fence around it,” he said of last year’s events.

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