Chinatown is more than uh capable of being successful on its own as the provincial election approaches BC conservative leader John rustad came to Chinatown Friday afternoon speaking to business owners and community members about their concerns which were mostly focused around crime drugs disorder on the street and vandalism there's a lot of issues that continue popping up in the neighborhood it's been an uphill battle um my business and property is graffiti they're vandalized at least once a week at the very least I'd like to help give Chinatown a Fighting Chance there has to be consequences and and as the rule of thumb 20% of the people are causing 80% of the problem we can't be afraid of utilizing you know a jail for criminal activity a number of violent incidents have rocked the neighborhood over the last two years last September a triple stabbing at the lightup Chinatown festival and more recently a Japanese citizen was stabed and killed in June some community members say it's in part because Chinatown is beside the downtown east side where there's often open drug use and a dense population of unhoused people and it's not just Chinatown that is uh feeling the effects but uh also other neighborhoods like Gastown Strath K as well so but there's far more things in common between the neighborhoods adjacent to the downtown east side according to Sarah blly with the overdose prevention Society on east tastings having housing for people in the downtown east side is really important because if people have housing they can use their washrooms inside they have a place to go um they're not necessarily in the street so working together and advocating for the downtown east side to get support that they need whether it be recovery or detox or whether it be safe injection sites so people can not be using outside they can be using inside so I think really um you know in the violence we experience violence in the downtown east side too we don't want violence here either so there's a lot of things that we have in common that we need to work on together at Friday's Roundtable rustad focused on being tough on crime and addiction recovery for those with substance use disorders in the downtown east side you have a vision for Chinatown it's hard to talk it's hard to talk about Chinatown without talking about the downtown east side at the same time do you have a vision for the downtown east side well that's a big piece of building out that recovery model because so for many people that are in there we need to make sure we've got recovery and quite frankly there's some people who can never recover these drugs that are out on the streets today are telling me within 2 to 3 years they can cause permanent brain damage there are many people who will never be able to recover and back be a part of society in Vancouver kir Juno City news