I spend a lot of time at the Millennium Library, so much so it is like a second home; that is why I am truly pissed off with what it has become-namely a place for Native street gangs to hang out and make drug deals. Everyday I see cops in here questioning Natives or arresting them. Then there are all of the homeless drunks and addicts who try and use the place to sleep off whatever they are on. It is more than annoying to be reading or doing some work when one of these people who smell like they have not bathed in months and use solvents as cologne comes and sits don next to you or begs you for money. Security is always throwing them out at a rate that has grown over the last few years.
     Portage Place shopping center is a one stop shop for anyone wanting drugs. Two years ago it was just a place to score a gram of pot, in fact dealers would chase off anyone selling anything harder so that there was less heat from the cops. Now I'm offered everything from weed to crack and oxycodone pills.
    Downtown Winnipeg has over the last few years become more "multi-cultural", it has also become more dangerous. There are including regular security guards in the mall and stores, Downtown Watch who ware red coats and are basically like security guards who give people safe walks to their cars and chase off panhandlers. Then there are the Police Cadets in blue coats who deal with minor calls the police are to busy to get too. The we have Winnipeg Police who you can't go more than two minutes without seeing as they patrol on foot and in their cruisers. SO that is four different law enforcement agencies needed to police a relatively small area. When did this happen? When did things become so dangerous that we need all of this protection? It was when all of the Africans and Asians moved into the neighborhood. I have lived in the downtown area for almost sixteen years and it was safer when there were fewer non-whites here. Things need to change and the only way to change them is to ship those Africans back to where they came from.