07 June 2007

A junkie will...

Crawl over a mile of broken glass to get a fix.
-- VICTORIA -- A drug-fuelled series of crimes is costing the City of Victoria thousands of dollars in repairs and lost revenue, and fixing the situation could cost much more.

In the past year, drug addicts have damaged or stolen nearly 500 parking meters in the downtown core, forcing the city to look at a costly remedy.

Some of the meter heads are simply pried or cut off, with a crowbar or hacksaw. In other cases, the meter head is dislodged, and a magnet affixed to copper wire is used to extract the coins a few at a time.

At a cost of $630 for fixing damaged meters and $730 for replacing stolen ones, it has forked over $125,000 just to keep them up and running. All together, the city is out $265,000, and the losses mount every day.
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RELATED:
I'm okay with "safe injection" sites

As long as they put them on Baffin Island.

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