Howard Weiner sees people dealing crack cocaine everyday.
“There is not one day that goes by where we don’t see a sale,” says Weiner, who owns Cal Skate Skateboards, located on NW 6th in Old Town.
There has always been drug dealing in Old Town. But within the last year, Weiner says, crack cocaine dealers have become “brazen,” dealing and using in broad daylight. He now calls the corner of NW 6th and NW Flanders the “epicenter” of Portland’s crack cocaine trade.
“You have a neighborhood that is literally hemorrhaging from crime,” says Thom King, who lives in Flanders Lofts and owns a business in Old Town. “You will absolutely fear for your life,” if you walk through Old Town at night, he says.
Jake Hammer owns Everett Street Autoworks blocks away from Cal Skate. Hammer arrives at work at five thirty each morning. “The streets are combed with dealers,” he says. Two months ago, he says a man entered his reception area and scared a seven-year old girl when he asked her for money.
That incident provoked Hammer to support reinstating the Drug Free Zone (DFZ), which excluded people with a history of drug-related arrests from the Old Town. In effect from 1992 to 2007, Mayor Tom Potter allowed the DFZ to sunset in 2007 because an independent study revealed that African Americans were disproportionately excluded. There were also concerns about whether the DFZ violated a person’s civil liberties and due process rights.
Weiner’s inbox is full of emails from residents and business owners in the Old Town-Chinatown and Pearl District neighborhoods supporting the reinstatement of the DFZ. Weiner chairs the Old Town-Chinatown Livability and Public Safety Committee, and he brought the issue up for discussion during the Committee’s January and February meetings.
On March 1, the Old Town-Chinatown Neighborhood Association passed a resolution supporting the DFZ’s reinstatement with two conditions: exclusions would be based upon convictions, and exceptions will be made for people coming to access health care, social services, and education.
Those two conditions would make the new DFZ different from the previous one. Exclusions were formerly made based upon arrests, and excluded people were not allowed in the neighborhood for any reason. Another difference would be the creation of an oversight committee, which previously did not exist.
A closed-door meeting between the neighborhood association and Mayor Sam Adams’ office was scheduled for February 24 but was canceled because of snow. The meeting was rescheduled for March 8 but was canceled again. It has not been rescheduled.
Though the effort to reinstate the DFZ has been grassroots, Weiner says without support from the Mayor or a city commissioner, reinstatement is unlikely. He adds that it is imperative the leaders of Portland’s African American community be heavily involved.
Weiner believes most crack cocaine dealers in Old Town are “young, African American men” coming from north and northeast Portland, and that the activity is gang-related. "There is no question about it,” he says.
Many admit the DFZ is not the ultimate answer.
“It’s going to push people out of this area and into another area where they feel comfortable dealing,” King acknowledges.
One Portland Police officer has a walking beat in Old Town. The District Attorney’s office prosecutes fewer crimes because of budget cuts. Waiting lists to enter drug addiction treatment programs are extremely long, and funding to those programs is likely to be cut by both the county and state this year.
“We need to find alternatives,” Weiner says emphatically. “[But] this is one more tool we can have.”
informative, frustrating story. great photos. in the middle of the day, too.