Shawn Smeds won’t be sorry to see the Millennium Park encampment at First Avenue and George Street being closed down permanently.
He says drug use is the root of the social ills plaguing our city and until the provincial and local governments find a way to deal with that issue to provide the housing and counselling services needed to wean people off drugs, nothing will change. “I think giving them free drugs was the stupidest thing this government has ever done. If we’re supplying them, supply them only inside one designated building with doctors or nurses there to deal with a potential overdose.”
Smeds has had the front doors of his store broken twice, the first which cost $1,000 to fix. Then again this summer, after he asked a group to stop smoking crack right outside his door, one of them kicked it and broke the glass, which cost another $600 to repair. The Smeds opened their shop in February 2022 after Shawn worked 26 years in the hardware retail sector in the city and he’s never seen the problems of downtown in a worse state.