Moncton business owners frustrated over dirty needles, drug paraphernalia outside stores

Some Moncton business owners are showing signs of frustration as used needles and other drug paraphernalia have become a common sight outside their shops.

Chris Cormier, owner of Next Generation Hydroponics, says he's never seen things this bad in his city.

"We've been opening up the shop a lot of mornings and finding garbage spread all across the driveway. Dumpsters broken into, dirty needles in front of the dumpsters. We've been finding dirty needles under the roofs here, along the window edges," said Cormier."We've had mornings where we've opened up and found people sleeping under our window, sometimes even midafternoon with a blanket lying underneath the window in the parking lot."

He said the problem has steadily gotten worse over the years, which led him to file multiple complaints with the city, but has yet to receive a response.

Meantime, Cormier isn't the only one bothered by the issue.

Next-door to Cormier is Nevil Golwala, owner of Up in Smoke, who has reached out to the RCMP for help.

"It's hard for us as a small business to deal with this every day, those kind of needles and all those things. If you go anywhere you can see all the needles and everything, so that's the big issue," said Golwala.

Charlie Burrell, the founder of the Humanity Project, a not-for-profit organization that provides meals and clothing to the homeless, doesn't think the city or province is doing enough to help drug users in Moncton.

"I feel like the public has a legitimate reason to be upset with needles and meth pipes and people openly using [drugs] in public and some of the issues we're having in our city. It's concerning. It's concerning to me, it's concerning to the volunteers here and I understand that, but what we see today is a result of doing nothing for so long," said Burrell.

"We can't hide the problem, tear down the tents and take shopping carts and think the problem is just going to go away. We haven't invested enough into our own people to make any sort of impact," he added.

School properties in the area have also been seeing an increase of discarded needles and other drug paraphernalia.

Anglophone East School District Superintendent Randy MacLean said members are being vigilant in regards to disposing the items.

"We want to make sure that every student and every parent that arrives at school every day is safe and we have a safe environment and the same goes for our staff when they arrive every morning," said MacLean. "We do see traffic at night. We do see at times drug paraphernalia on our property, but I tell you, we work really, really hard with the City of Moncton who's been fantastic with our community liaison officers."

Conrad Landry, Moncton's fire chief and director of community services, said officers will be disposing needles by-law.

"If people see needles, doesn't matter if it's a business or private property, we ask them to call us. Maybe put a cardboard box or a cup over it so no one gets injured until we get there, but we will pick it up. But it's not an emergency service. It might take a couple of hours to get there, but we will go over there and pick it up," said Landry.

He adds while the issue has escalated throughout the city, resolving it will require community effort.

"It's a challenge. The drug situation in Moncton doesn't appear to be getting any better, but it's a community effort. These are vulnerable people. The police, by-law, everybody's got a role to play in it," said Landry.