Back to business in Old Town

TribTown • After fall police sweeps, neighbors feel dealers have returned

By peter korn

The Portland Tribune, Feb 26, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (6 Reader comments)

JIM CLARK / TRIBUNE FILE PHOTOS

Officer Vince Moreschi (left), since retired, and Sgt. Charlie Fender were among those called in to patrol Old Town after the exclusion zone expired in October. Many say the police sweeps have had only a temporary impact on drug dealing in the area.

You have to hand it to the drug dealers in Old Town/Chinatown, says Howard Weiner, owner of Cal Skate Skateboards at 210 N.W. Sixth Ave. They know how to adapt to changing circumstances.

And those changing circumstances – including one of the largest police missions in years aimed at lowering criminal activity in the Old Town neighborhood – don’t seem to have chased away the drug trade much at all, Weiner and others say.

A longtime Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood association board member, Weiner was among those sorry to see the city eliminate exclusion zone status for Old Town at the beginning of October.

The exclusion zone ordinances allowed police to pass out cards telling people who had been arrested on suspicion of drugs or prostitution that they were banned from the area.

In September, when word got out that the exclusion zones were being eliminated, drug dealers became emboldened and drug activity increased, according to neighborhood residents and Portland police.

Which is saying a lot, since Old Town already was considered the epicenter for the drug trade in Portland, according to police.

The police responded with two separate sweeps, according to Chris Davis, a sergeant with the Central Precinct street crimes unit.

From Sept. 18 through the end of that month and then for the entire month of November, officers from all over the city were called in to Old Town.

The September sweep was all about drugs, and undercover officers bought illegal or imitation illegal drugs 87 times, Davis says.

The November sweep, “the biggest sustained mission in recent memory,” according to Davis, resulted in 173 arrests.

But the focus of that mission was on livability crimes. Officers issued citations for sidewalk obstruction and traffic violations and generally made their presence felt, Davis says.

“The idea in the second half was not to focus entirely on the drugs,” Davis says. “It was to try and get that message out that the police are still engaged in this community.”

The November mission included the police bringing in their mobile precinct, a motor home communications center, and parking it at Northwest Fourth Avenue and Couch Street.

That, Davis says, had a psychological impact on drug dealers.

“To say the local crack cocaine crowd freaked out would not be an overstatement,” Davis says.

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