Viewpoint: Meet the ‘Meth’

By Francine Berry –

Our friends in St. Lawrence may or may not wish to hear how some Corktowners are coping with Mr. Gupte’s methadone business that moved from their neighbourhood to ours about three months ago.

At the September meeting of the Corktown Residents & Business Association, several people who lived and/or have businesses near the new methadone dispensary at King & Trinity had a lot to complain about: vagrants threatening them with and without weapons, strangers offering people crack, break-ins, noise, garbage, drug dealing, and a whole lot more.

Corktowners recently succeeded in cleaning up Sackville Parkette, a few steps east of this dispensary, so that people with children and dogs would feel safe there. Now it’s a pit stop for people going to and from the “clinic” for their fix. This Saturday morning I saw a man rushing out of the park with a water bottle full of still steaming urine!

Tell me, what is that for?

This is not a place where you nod to your neighbours in elevators. This is still a village where people get to know who their neighbours are. These trouble-makers are not the neighbours. I suspect they are only a small percentage of Mr. Gupte’s hundreds of daily clients, but their impact on a small, street-level community is shocking! The politicians who allowed this business to set up in a small neighbourhood – ANY neighbourhood – should be thrown out with the rest of Toronto’s garbage.

FYI, Queen and River has never been quieter. The hookers and pimps won’t come out now until we worker bees are in bed, and we have 51 Division to thank for that. I used to feel that meth dispensaries should be in hospitals, but I now think maybe they should be in police stations.