The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor The notorious 'Hong Kong alley' may not be the only downtown walkway on the chopping block as city council tackles concerns over vagrants. Coun. Bill Hanson wants to also remove the wooden walkways that run between homes between Hapnot and Callinan streets. 'Basically we're letting people walk through other people's yards and I think it's creating, basically, a crime zone for those areas,' he said. For generations, three sets of staircases have offered pedestrians a shortcut between Hapnot and Hill streets, Hill Street and Callinan Lane, and Callinan Lane and Callinan Street. Coun. Hanson said neighbours have been complaining about theft and juvenile delinquency, and a Mountie once told him the walkways were becoming crime zones. 'I don't think there's a whole lot of support in the community to keep them open,' he said. Coun. Hanson said the city has already removed two similar downtown walkways without a word of a complaint. See 'Councillor...' on pg. 7 Continued from pg. 1 Though no timeframe has been set, he believes there is enough support on council to take out the last of the walkways. But Coun. Skip Martin wants to keep both the walkways and the Hong Kong alley open. 'I think our city should be as pedestrian-friendly,' he said at Tuesday's council meeting. Coun. Martin said people concerned about passing through the Hong Kong alley should just make a point of avoiding it. 'I mean, if you didn't want to walk through it before, well just don't walk through it,' he said. 'But leave it as an option for other people to walk through if they want.' Despite such objections, the city plans to gate off the alley _ sandwiched between the Hong Kong Restaurant and Indian Heart Creations _ at an undetermined date in the near future. Drunkenness, urination and disposed liquor bottles are among the complaints city officials have heard about the alley. Municipal Administrator Mark Kolt said he also heard some time ago that the alley was a site for drug deals. Shift problem? But Kolt acknowledged there are concerns that closing the alley will simply shift such problems elsewhere. 'But on the other hand, if one were to use that as a reason to never do anything, nothing would ever get done,' he said. Kolt said the hope is that 'certain types of problems that are unique to that location because of the lack of visibility' will be remedied with the alley closure. He mentioned the practise of people urinating in the alley, saying once the walkway is closed they will hopefully find 'a more appropriate place or a place that's less visible.' Asked whether the city in fact owns the land on which the alley sits, Kolt said he believed so and that he is pretty sure it owns the land at either end where the gates will be placed. He said the city has 'a variety of ways' it could justify closing the alley and he doesn't expect any problems. Mayor George Fontaine said the city has been receiving more requests than usual to seal off the alley. 'At some point you just say, 'That's enough,'' he said. Since the alley closure does not require a bylaw, the move did not have to come to a public vote and was dealt with as an administrative matter. In terms of the wooden walkways between the homes, Coun. Hanson called their expected demise 'kind of sad' as they likely date back to the 1930s. But he said the walkways are no longer needed like they were decades ago. Coun. Hanson said he has no desire to remove the staircase stretching from the top of the Freedman Bridge on Fourth Avenue down to Bellevue Avenue. He does, however, have concerns about the staircase stretching from First Avenue up to Second Avenue, near the Lutheran Church.
