EDMONTON — The locally created “Don’t Be That Guy” poster campaign is set to be refreshed just in time for the Edmonton Police Service’s renewed push to target sexual assault.

One of three posters in the "Don't Be That Guy" campaign that urges men aged 18-24 to rethink what sexual consent looks like when drugs and alcohol are involved. Photograph supplied.

The “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign, aimed at convincing men aged 18 to 24 that just because a woman is intoxicated doesn’t mean you can take advantage of her, was launched in 2010 by the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton in collaboration with Edmonton Police Service and a host of other partners jointly called Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton.

The posters showed pictures of a woman passed out on a couch or being “helped” into a car. The message was clear – the absence of a “no” did not mean a “yes” when alcohol or drugs were involved.

“If she’s too drunk, if she’s too intoxicated to give voluntary consent, then she’s too drunk to have sex,” said Karen Smith, executive director of SACE.

The same set of collaborators are in the process of adding more posters to the campaign. Smith had been trying to get others to recognize the alarming trend of increased alcohol- and drug-facilitated sexual assault. Cities worldwide have now identified the trend and are using Edmonton’s campaign as a way to fight it.

It’s been two years since the debut of the campaign and Smith is excited about adding to the line of three posters that target perpetrators of sexual assault instead of potential victims.

“It’s the only way to stop this,” Smith said.

“Don’t be that guy” 2.0

The second rollout of the campaign aims to educate bystanders, and includes more diversity in the types of victims and perpetrators shown.

In addition to thinking up new slogans that will be true to the campaign’s original intent, Smith and her partners will need to look for artwork that will speak to young revelers at the bar and students taking the LRT home. The posters need to simultaneously make someone think twice and be part of a larger conversation about the nature of consent.

Smith credits the blunt artwork with the campaign’s success.

“Almost any young person can identify with those scenes.”

The images are based on what police and paramedics see on a typical weekend on Whyte Avenue: heavily intoxicated women being steered into compromising positions by less drunk men.

Building the first campaign took nearly 18 months from start to finish. Smith expects the same will be true of her second attempt and would be surprised if anything was ready before the end of the year.

The second wave of the campaign comes at an appropriate time for Edmonton. Police Chief Rod Knecht announced recently that alcohol- and drug-facilitated sexual assault was up 12 per cent in 2011 from 2010. Of the 209 reported sexual assaults last year, 123 had to do with alcohol.

Does that mean “Don’t Be That Guy” doesn’t work? Smith thinks that there is good news in the numbers. In Canada, only one in 10 sexual assaults are actually reported to police. If more sexual assaults are reported, it’s a positive indication, she said.

“The fact that there are more reported sexual assaults, I think that is a success,” Smith said. “People are coming forward and saying ‘This did happen to me, it was wrong, I know it was wrong.’ ”

Poster to poster, city to city

“Don’t Be That Guy” has been used by several cities across North America, Europe and even Australia.

“It’s literally gone all over the world,” Smith said. “They’ve even translated it, not only into other languages, but other dialects of English.”

Unlike other campaigns that have a cost tied to importing them, DBTG gives the campaign away.

“We don’t charge anybody anything for it,” Smith said. “All we ask is that we be acknowledged.”

Shifting the blame

The campaign is a marked change from previous messages.

“Always go out in a buddy system, always have somebody look after your drink if you go to the washroom, make sure you wear modest clothing, if you’re at home make sure your doors and windows are locked – we had all of these rules for women, don’t drink too much, don’t do this, don’t do that,” said Smith.

Such rules have been harmful to survivors of sexual assault, Smith said.

“So what would happen is a young women hears these rules on how she is supposed to protect herself, and lo and behold she is sexually assaulted. And then she has this list of rules she goes over in her head, and she thinks ‘Oh, my skirt was too short,’ or ‘Oh, I drank too much,’ and so she blames herself for this.”

Making women anticipate that they could always be in danger of sexual assault wasn’t getting to the real issue of prevention.

“What we wanted to do is shift that blame from the victim to where it really belongs – onto the perpetrator.”

yogaretnams@mymail.macewan.ca

Evan Porter, 24, uses the shooting range at Wild West Shooting Centre at West Edmonton Mall, 8882 170 St., on January 25, 2012. Porter has owned long guns for two years and is looking forward to the scrapping of the long-gun registry. Photograph by Shaamini Yogaretnam.

EDMONTON — A West Edmonton long-gun retailer will have less paperwork to deal with, as the Harper government is set to abolish the long-gun registry in the coming weeks.

“That’ll be nice,” said an eager Ken Kupsch. Kupsch is co-owner of Wild West Shooting Centre at West Edmonton Mall. He has  owned the shooting centre, one of the hubs of Edmonton’s shooting communities, for 12 years and has more than two decades of experience in the gun industry. Kupsch thinks the end of the long-gun registry will mean faster processing times and not having to turn customers away.

As it stands, the registry is a big part of long-gun sales.

When potential buyers come into Wild West, they have to show their firearms licence to initiate a purchase. Kupsch and his team then have to do a transfer through the Canadian Firearms Program, in Miramichi, N.B., that houses the registry. All of the guns for sale at Wild West are registered to the centre until they find a permanent home with a buyer, who can then take on their registration. Once the transfer is done, through the phone or Internet, the gun ownership transfers to the buyer and he/she can take it home.

“It’s just bureaucracy that we don’t need,” said Kupsch, who has lost customers over the process. “A lot of people won’t bother with it.”

If the registry is done away with, customers will still have to produce a firearms licence to buy the long gun but once they do, they can purchase and leave with it.

“Business-wise, it makes it easier for us,” Kupsch said. ‘It’s less complicated, which is better for everybody in the industry and everybody in the shooting community.”

Wild West offers patrons both a shooting range and a place to purchase guns and shooting accessories.

The long-gun registry

In 1995, a change was made to the Firearms Act in reaction to the use of a long-gun in the slaying of 14 women at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique in 1989. Hunting rifles and shotguns were to be licenced by 2001 and registered by the first day of 2003. These non-restricted long-gun registrations make up the long-gun registry and were added to an existing registry that listed restricted and prohibited guns.

The law demands that all non-restricted long guns – guns that are at least 26 inches long and are not classified as restricted or prohibited – be registered. The models, makes, descriptions and serial numbers of all long guns are supposed to be recorded.

In 2006, the Conservative government announced an amnesty for all long-gun owners who failed to register their firearms. The amnesty was extended once and is set to expire on May 16, 2013. The registry and its contents are on target to be erased well before then.

There are over seven million firearms files in the long-gun registry.

Compliance and criminal activity

“Most of the people that have guns, didn’t register ‘em,” said Kupsch.

He doesn’t believe the registry has lowered gun crime in the country.

“It doesn’t help because somebody with criminal intent, the firearms laws isn’t going to stop them,” Kupsch said. “If they were willing to commit a crime, a gun law isn’t going to stop them from doing that. The gun laws can’t prevent a crime.”

“Bad people do bad things, it has nothing to do with access to firearms,” Kupsch said. “The criminals today still have access to firearms. No matter how strict our gun laws are, people still have them. All we say is let the good people have them too.”

Difficult to work with the registry

Evan Porter is a long-gun owner who has had long guns for two years and has always registered them.

“Every time I purchased a firearm, the dealership would just do it for me and then it would come in the mail,” Porter said. “It was easy to do.”

It’s been simple to register his guns but Porter doesn’t see a need for the registry and has had his share of hassles with the system.

Porter’s father wanted to give him a hunting rifle that had been in the family for years. When the elder Porter applied for a change of ownership, he found that the registry had incorrect information about the gun.

“They didn’t know how long it was, they didn’t know how many rounds it held, nothing like that,” said Porter.

“We did everything we could to find out what the rules were so we could make sure all of our ducks were in a row and it was just incredibly frustrating.”

It took some time, but Porter’s father held off on giving him the gun until the registration process was complete. They’ve always abided by the law.

“In my opinion, people that are going to commit crimes with firearms don’t register them, or wouldn’t use a registered firearm,” Porter said.

Opponents of the registry often think that it places an unfair financial and time burden on law-abiding rural gun owners instead of zeroing in on the urban criminal use of firearms.

“In a city environment, it makes more sense. But the majority of people that use these long guns don’t live in big cities,” Porter said.

What the passing of Bill C-19 means for EPS

Bill C-19, the Elimination of the Long-Gun Registry Bill, was introduced in the House of Commons in October 2011 by the Conservative government. Critics of the registry have often said that it is ineffectual as a policing tool and a waste of gun-owners’ money.

Edmonton gun owners might think the registry is a bureaucratic nightmare but the reality of the registry is very different for law enforcement. Det. Ron Johnson, of the Edmonton Police Service’s National Weapons Enforcement Support Team, says that the long-gun registry is the first point of policing every time a non-restricted, long-barreled firearm is seized.

“We use it every day in our office,” Johnson said.

The guns are checked to see if they are reported stolen and if they are registered. If they are registered, the owners are contacted to see what they know of the circumstance of the gun coming into EPS’s possession.

“Maybe it hasn’t got the value that people thought it would have when it was brought in, but it’s certainly a starting point in some investigations,” Johnson said.

“Sometimes we get sawed-off guns that are stolen from a guy’s place and he doesn’t know it’s been stolen until he gets contacted by police saying ‘Hey, guess what. We bagged your gun.’”

In the likely absence of the registry, EPS will no longer be able to access the information. All current files of the registry will be destroyed if Bill C-19 is passed, effectively making the decision to scrap the registry irreversible.

“What your hope would be is that the people who have their guns registered now will keep their certificates,” Johnson said. For many gun owners, the long-gun registry is the only record of serial numbers that they have.

Bill C-19 began its third and final reading on Monday. The Conservatives have won a motion to limit the time to debate to two days.

yogaretnams@mymail.macewan.ca

EDMONTON — Life for Lucy the elephant is a bit better now that she’ll be exercising inside if it’s too cold outdoors, but those fighting to relocate her remain unsatisfied.

The Edmonton Valley Zoo had committed to improving upon the physical spaces available to its elephant before the new year in response to suggestions made by Edmonton’s Humane Society.

Lucy the elephant lets out a groan while out for her first walk of the day around the zoo grounds with her handler at the Edmonton Valley Zoo in Edmonton, on Feb.5, 2012. Photograph by Jeremy Jagodzinski.

“On the rare days when the weather dictates she can’t walk around the grounds, like last week for instance, she does exercise in a climate controlled animal care structure,” said Debi Winwood, communications officer at the zoo in regards to mid-January’s plunge to -35 C.

“It’s new this winter and it responds to the Edmonton Humane Society’s recommendation to ensure that Lucy can exercise all year round.”

Only 100 metres behind Lucy’s pen, north of the Saito Interpretive Centre, the large grey oval structure is an open area 80 by 50 feet wide and stands 28 feet tall.

Features include insulated walls, a soft sand floor and a skylight to let in natural light. Because of its generic design, any animal can have their specific needs met to exercise despite low temperatures.

This means that cold weather will no longer prevent Lucy from taking the three walks she needs each day to help her lose the excess weight she carries.

The zoo has also refurbished Lucy’s smaller indoor home with thick matting for comfort and warmth as well as plenty of sand to lie on.

Nonetheless, such efforts make little difference to those who disapprove of the zoo’s guardianship of Lucy.

“There’s a number of things going against them,” said Gert Zagler, founder of the Friends of Lucy group. “Lucy’s originally from Sri Lanka and as the temperature falls quite low she can’t go outside. There’s a space issue: there just isn’t the terrain, the enrichment for her to thrive.”

Each side evaluates Lucy’s access to space and protection from cold differently because they disagree as to where Lucy should be housed during her later years.

“Lucy continues to do well,” said Winwood. “She’s 36 years old, so she’s content and well-adjusted and her health is stable.”

But just like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), which has been fighting the zoo in the courts, Zagler wants to have Lucy moved to a large elephant sanctuary in the U.S. to live with others of her kind.

Lucy the elephant out for her first walk of the day around the zoo grounds with her handler at the Edmonton Valley Zoo in Edmonton, on Feb.5, 2012. Photograph by Jeremy Jagodzinski.

“If an elephant is a herd animal and thrives in more temperate climates, how can you argue that California wouldn’t be a better place for Lucy?” said Zagler.

Another group called In Defense of Animals recently ranked the Valley Zoo the worst in North America in its annual list of the “10 Worst Zoos for Elephants.” Although it’s an unofficial list, results were based on lack of space, frigidity of the climate and the quality of living space.

The city disputes the criticism.

“The city of Edmonton takes great exception to the continued misinformation of the care Lucy receives at the Valley Zoo,” said Winwood. “She receives excellent care here and the Valley Zoo complies with all applicable regulatory and legislative standards.”

President of the Voice for Animals Humane Society in Edmonton and PETA’s co-plaintiff against the zoo, Tove Reece, says she’s as concerned for Lucy’s mental health as she is for her physical well-being.

“Some kind of tent or whatever they’ve set up down there is just not enough,” said Reece. “The thing is that in the summer she can go outside and walk around her enclosure, but she doesn’t do it, she just stands still… I just think she’s lonely and bored.”

This past fall, Reece, PETA and Zoocheck had petitioned the Supreme Court to review the decision made by the Court of Appeal to dismiss their case. But there’s no indication of how long they’ll be waiting on an answer.

In the meantime, Reece will continue her fight in other ways.

“We will probably keep up doing some protests,” said Reece. “But I’m hoping at some point we can approach the city councillors again to see if there’s anybody there who might be open [to help].”

For those wanting to know more about Lucy and how the Valley Zoo addresses her specific needs, the Edmonton Valley Zoo offers 20-minute “Elephant Talks” every Sunday until Feb. 26 and again on Saturdays and Sundays from March 3 to April 29 at 11 a.m.

jagodzinskij@mymail.macewan.ca

EDMONTON — Dr. Mary Haase points to an enlarged reprint of an old photograph on her desk. The picture is of a woman with three little girls standing at her side.

“I’m the little girl on the right-hand side,” said the MacEwan University psychiatric nursing professor. “I lived next door to Mrs. Jackson… and she had OCD.”

This early interaction marked the beginning of Haase’s fascination with compulsive behaviours.

Today, Haase and her two colleagues, Dr. Irene Coulson and Melissa Watkins, are gaining recognition for their research in compulsive hoarding. The trio examined the experience of people who hoard, and effective and innovative ways to treat the compulsion.

Part of Jane Sadoway's collection of DVDs and videos, stored in her living room. Sadoway is a bargain hunter and self-proclaimed "gatherer." She attends various groups and has been assigned someone to help with her hoarding compulsion. Photograph by Tejay Gardiner. Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011.

Haase is clearly intrigued by and deeply engaged in her research, but her most interesting finding so far is the taboo around compulsive disorders.

“OCD is secretive,” she said. “The average person takes 17 years from the first symptoms to diagnosis, because they hide it.”

Part of Haase’s earlier research focused on comparing “ordinary” behaviour with “compulsive” behaviour. She explains that satisfying the compulsion is similar to the “high” a drug addict feels.

“People who hoard,” Haase said, “the ones who go out and acquire, get a ‘high’ from acquiring.

“So when they find that bargain, or they find something cheap, or they find that find in the trash bin, they’re thrilled,” she said.

There are three types of hoarders: Those who actively go out and acquire, those who hold onto things that come into their possession, and Diogenes hoarders, who are typically older and have more extreme symptoms.

Often people who hoard have experienced loss. It can be the loss of personal items or the loss of a loved one that triggers the compulsion.

Jane Sadoway, who worked with the MacEwan research team, calls herself a “gatherer.”

When she was 12 years old, her mother gave away her toys during a family move without her knowledge. One doll in particular was very meaningful to Sadoway and she feels this loss triggered her hoarding behaviour.

She can find a use for almost anything she comes across. She is a bargain hunter and collector, and she said when she watches the television show Consumed she sees herself.

“I once bought a bag of 10 items for 28 cents,” she said.

She also talks a lot about saving things for her daughter and passing them on. If a neighbour or friend needs something she will find it for them. Take for example, the small box of hollyhock flower seeds on her desk, which she collected for her neighbour.

Sadoway attends various groups and has been assigned a counsellor to help her curb her hoarding behaviour. The groups have been helpful, she said, and offers an example of how she can talk herself out of hanging on to things.

“I had an ice cube tray the other day,” she said, “and I was trying to decide what to do with it.” She was tempted to keep it, thinking she could use this one for storing jewelry, since she had one in the freezer already.

“So I had to talk myself out of keeping it,” she said.

And what did Sadoway tell herself? She told herself that she didn’t need it, that she could use something else to store jewelry, that she doesn’t use ice much, and that she doesn’t have anyone to keep it for and pass on to. With that conversation, she was able to throw away the tray.

It sounds like an exhausting process, but it is one that Haase also encourages. Simply going into someone’s house and decluttering, or in extreme cases evicting a person from his or her home, doesn’t address the real issues of why people hoard. Instead it can cause more stress and lead the individual to another round of hoarding.

“It’s really difficult to let go of something,” Haase said. “It would be like me going into your house and asking you to throw away all the photographs of your mom and dad.

“Would you be OK with that?”

Haase hopes her team’s research will address these inadequate solutions and offer a better alternative to effectively treat hoarding compulsion.

The next phase of their research will look at people who live with hoarders.

Hear Jane Sadoway talk about her life and her home:

GardinerT3@mymail.macewan.ca

EDMONTON — During the holidays, the Edmonton Food Bank hopes to fill collection bins for the needy, but not every donation is worthy of gratitude.

Most people give generously at events such as Candy Cane Lane, the Christmas lights display along 148^th Street between 92 and 100 avenues. But the bins for food also receive a lot of litter and used, expired or unsanitary items that end up in the warehouse for processing.

The Edmonton Food Bank logo on the sign outside the Food Bank warehouse, Dec. 12, 2011, in Edmonton, Alta. Photograph by Jeremy Jagodzinski

“We get a lot of toiletries: a lot of it is good — soap, toothpaste, whatever — but also you get a lot of stuff that’s half used up,” said warehouse worker Lisa Drapaka.

“What I imagine for most of it is somebody went into their dead relative’s medicine cabinet and just took all the stuff out and were like, ‘We’ll just give it to the food bank.’… We get weird half bottles of perfumes and denture creams and expired condoms and that sort of thing.”

Candy Cane Lane has been an annual Christmas tradition in Edmonton for the last 40 years. Nearly 300,000 Edmontonians flock to see the light displays that radiate out from the houses.

From Dec. 10 to Jan. 2, visitors are invited to deposit nonperishable and unused donations in one of the many well-marked donation bins.

Depending on the weather and the economy, the event collects 15,000 to 30,000 kilograms of food and household items.

“This is the one time of year I’ll collect a few coupons,” said Jennifer Rolls, who frequents the event almost every year. “I’ll use them to buy toiletries, maybe peanut butter and a few really nice items, things I think other people might not think of buying. And if I have time, I’ll pick up a stuffed animal or something a child might use if I get the chance before going to Candy Cane Lane.”

Drapaka says that there is a simple rule Food Bank donors should follow.

“If you wouldn’t buy this in a store, don’t give it out,” she said. “That’s it. That’s what we say here to volunteers, you know?”

These are the sorts of items the Food Bank is hoping will be donated at Candy Cane Lane from Dec. 10 to Jan. 2, and at other food drives running throughout the holidays. Photograph by Jeremy Jagodzinski.

The following staple items are routinely distributed by the Food Bank during the holidays as well as any other time of the year:

• Beans with or without pork
• Canned meat
• Canned fish
• Canned fruit or vegetables
• Peanut butter
• Powdered milk
• Macaroni and cheese dinners
• Pasta and pasta sauce
• Cereal and oatmeal
• School snack items such as juice boxes, fruit cups and granola bars.

“When I’m giving out stuff to Food Banks on my own, usually it’s stuff I’m cleaning out my house and going through my cupboards and I’m like ‘when the hell was I going to eat this?’” said Drapaka. “But you know the date’s fine it’s not dinged up. I’ve never given anything away that’s been… weird”

The Food Bank is more than happy to take anybody’s unwanted food no matter if it’s dry pasta, canned goods or even pet food. But what they sometimes get instead is empty recyclables, used ammunition, alcohol and even half-eaten perishables, such as a pecan pie with a bite taken out of it.

For those unable to make it to Candy Cane Lane, donations can also be made directly to the Food Bank anytime at 11508 120 St., or at the Real Canadian Superstore on 170 Street until Dec. 15.

JagodzinskiJ@mymail.macewan.ca

JASPER PLACE — Support staff at MacEwan University demonstrated in front of MacEwan’s Centre for the Arts and Communications on Dec. 14 to call for better compensation.

Joyce Nethercote, a Grant MacEwan University adviser, holds a sign in protest for better compensation in front of the Centre for the Arts and Communications on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011. Photograph by Vickie Laliotis

The MacEwan Staff Association (MSA) is currently in negotiations with the university over wages, which it does not feel are in line with Edmonton’s current Consumer Price Index, said Joyce Nethercote, the university adviser for the communications programs at the west-end campus, located on 156th Street and Stony Plain Road.

“We’re having this information session just to let the university and the public know about MacEwan Staff Association’s importance to MacEwan University, and that the work we do is the backbone of MacEwan University,” Nethercote said.

About 25 staff  members held signs protesting the proposed two-per-cent compensation for 2011 and 2012, noting that the current CPI for this year is 3.5 per cent.

“We are in negotiations with the university and have been given an offer that we don’t feel is in line with Edmonton’s consumer price index, so we just want to let them know that we aren’t happy with that and we would like them to reconsider,” Nethercote said.

The negotiations between the MSA and the university began in early 2011 and will continue until further notice.

“Both sides are still talking, and we are hoping to find a resolution shortly,” said MacEwan media relations spokesperson David Beharry.

“I do understand their frustration and the university wants to move forward with a solution. The staff are incredibly important to MacEwan, and quite frankly we couldn’t function as a university without them.”

Here are more pictures from Wednesday’s demonstration:

LaliotisV@mymail.macewan.ca

Many objects were tipped or moved in the strong wind, but few as big as the West Jasper Place mini-mall sign. Photograph by Timothy Gerwing.

By Timothy Gerwing

EDMONTON — High winds sent a sign crashing down onto the parking lot of a west Edmonton mini-mall on Dec. 2.

Alex Saab was watching violent wind throw small items around like toys from his store’s window Friday morning, but he never expected what happened next.

“It was crazy,” said Saab.

Saab, who owns the Liquor Run in the West Jasper Place shopping centre at 15636 Stony Plain Rd., watched the sign come crashing down at 10:30 a.m. from wind he said had reached 90 km/h.

“It was a giant crash,” said Saab. “A truck was passing when it fell. Two cars were parked underneath. I wanted to go outside and stop traffic, but it was over. Somehow no people or cars got even a scratch.”

Saab said the property management group that owns the shopping centre is lucky nobody got hurt, because he thought the sign was loose to begin with.

At 3:30 p.m., Cliff’s Towing was on site to remove the wreckage.

Saab said insurance will cover a new sign, and he didn’t think the business owners would be responsible for the related costs.

Calgary was hit by a similar storm earlier this week, where wind speeds were clocked as high as 149 km/h.

The wind is forecast to be strong again on Saturday. Watch Environment Canada for more weather warnings.

GerwingT@mymail.macewan.ca

EDMONTON — A look tells Kari Thomason who is in the business of selling sex. She sees a woman sitting on a bench along Stony Plain Road, and she just knows.

Temptation Massage, located at 15122 Stony Plain Rd., is one massage parlour that the new body-rub-centre bylaw amendments will affect. The parlour is on a road where traditional prostitution is a community mainstay, but provides services that will be licensed and regulated as of Jan. 1, 2012. These services are changing the definition of sex work in Edmonton. Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011. Photograph by Shaamini Yogaretnam.

“She’s looking for a date,” says Thomason on a cool night earlier this fall as she drives across the city “tracking,” or checking in on sex workers for Project SNUG, an outreach program she co-ordinates.

How does she know?

“It’s called ‘spyhopping,’ ” says Thomason.

It’s a term borrowed from the study of whales, who poke their heads out of the water to gauge their surroundings before emerging fully. For girls on the street, spyhopping means the kind of eye contact they make as they search for a man who might want to pay them for sex.

Communication for the purpose of prostitution is a crime, but a look is harder to book. The prostitutes and johns know it when they see it, and so does the social worker Thomason.

More and more, sex workers are getting around the law in another way: by working in erotic massage parlours, where dates are arranged by appointment instead of eye contact. New regulations that differentiate between therapeutic massage parlours and “rub-and-tugs” are a signal of the changing face of sex work in Edmonton.

Massage parlours

Changes to the city’s massage parlour bylaw were passed by city council in late September and will come into effect on Jan. 1. Parlours will be classified, and thereby licensed, as either a health enhancement centre, which would cover registered massage therapy, or as a body rub centre, which would define erotic massage, or those centres commonly known as “rub-and-tugs.”

The changes also demand higher licensing fees for body rub centres, a mandatory sexual exploitation class for business owners, and proof that all employees are over 18. Under the current bylaw, the fee for all massage practitioners is $76. Body rub centres would see that fee increase to $208 in the new year, while health enhancement parlours would pay $80.

City council’s decision to make these changes reflects the large number of erotic massage parlours in Edmonton. City estimates have put the number of parlours that would need body-rub licensing in Edmonton at over 40. That makes Edmonton unusual, Thomason says.

“We have 48 rub-and-tugs,” she says. “Calgary has six.”

Visible and accepted

The area of Stony Plain Road between 149 Street and 163 Street has both erotic massage parlours and the more traditional street prostitution. Const. James Shaw recognizes that in parts of his beat, prostitution is so visible that it’s accepted.

“It would be very rare that we’ll see a call on the board for someone reporting someone prostituting or being concerned about someone, because it’s a daily thing here,” Shaw says. “It’s more us generating those calls ourselves.”

The majority of the outreach done by Project SNUG is aimed towards women who continue to work on the streets. These women have different reasons for sex work — often a need to feed a drug addiction — and face different challenges from women who work in the parlours.

Typically, body rub massage parlours are closed by 11:30 p.m. and try not to stick out on a busy avenue. They specialize in the “girlfriend experience” and target different clients than traditional prostitution does, says Shaw.

High track vs. low track

The city’s initial move to allow erotic massage parlours years ago was an effort to deal with the issues of addiction and violence commonly seen on the street.

“The city decided to establish ‘rub-and-tugs’ because we used to have a high track and a low track,” Thomason says. “Not anymore, we’re completely low-track now.”

The high- and low-track divide in Edmonton was actually marked by the track where the LRT comes up from the underground between Churchill Station and Stadium, off of 95 Street.

“From the train tracks south was all high track — girls who were expensive and controlled by pimps,” Thomason says. “North of the bridge were girls considered low-track, gang-run, and independent girls.”

Once the city’s licensing came in, the high-track women moved inside, and those working on the low track moved to the high-track positions, hoping for better treatment and more security. Yet the challenges faced by each group remained with them, even though they were doing different work.

While Thomason doesn’t believe that the high track still exists in Edmonton, there is a difference in the type of sex work seen throughout the city. Escort services and massage parlours in other neighbourhoods, mainly those downtown, certainly attract a different kind of sex worker and client, Shaw says. The west end, despite the number of massage parlours, still experiences high levels of exploitation and addiction.

The acceptance of some forms of prostitution in the area allows a service like SNUG to work, and for people like Thomason to keep in touch with the women working in the area.

The changes to the bylaw worry Thomason, however, in that further regulation might lead to a new low track and high track, with high-end parlours that can afford the additional fees and treat their employees reasonably well, and low-end parlours that go underground, leaving the women who work there without any regulatory protection.

yogaretnams@mymail.macewan.ca

EDMONTON — A 24-hour sex shop on Stony Plain Road has stopped playing pornographic video footage in its front window after police deemed the video potentially offensive, even though area shop-owners and patrons hadn’t made formal complaints.

XXX Centrefold Adult Entertainment Centre, located at 15108 Stony Plain Rd., still has a television screen mounted in its shop window even though Edmonton Police Service has asked them to remove the sexual video footage. The screen now solely plays advertisements for the shop. Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011. Photograph by Shaamini Yogaretnam.

Centrefold Adult Entertainment Centre, located on the corner of 151 Street and Stony Plain Road, has a television screen mounted in its shop window facing the well-travelled road. The screen played video footage of women in sexual scenarios spliced with ads for the shop. The erotic video has since been removed, while the ads that highlight the shop’s hours and products continue to play.

Although police had not received any complaints, they were informally told about the footage from community members. Edmonton Police Service then went in to Centrefold to look at the feed and the footage.

“What they found is it wasn’t obscene, it wasn’t criminal, but it was still seen as possibly offensive and not appropriate with the pedestrian and street traffic in the community,” said Chad Orydzuk, a spokesman for the Edmonton Police Service.

Local business owners are more surprised that they hadn’t received any complaints than they are about the footage being used in the first place.

Julie Sagan, who has operated Bikram Yoga across the street from Centrefold since July 2008, said she had not received any complaints about the X-rated footage, although she has taken steps to shield her clients from the area’s sights and sounds.

“I had one lady that commented ‘Wow, this is a pretty sketchy area,’” Sagan said of a client who was driving in the neighbourhood trying to find the yoga studio.

Bikram’s clients, many of whom don’t live in the area and aren’t familiar with the other businesses on Stony Plain Road, access the studio from a back door that is just south of the road and doesn’t put them into contact with the other businesses on the strip.

Sagan has also frosted the windows to make her clients more comfortable in the studio. Passers-by can’t peer in through the window while her students are in classes, and the students needn’t worry about getting an eyeful of the surrounding area.

Diane Kereluk, executive director of the Stony Plain Road and Area Business Association said she hadn’t been aware of any complaints about the footage being played by Centrefold.

“We haven’t received any complaints but that doesn’t necessarily mean that people aren’t complaining,” Kereluk said.

Centrefold is automatically a member of the business association simply by falling into the designated zone that the association covers, said Kereluk.

An employee at Centrefold Adult Entertainment Centre refused to comment or give his name when contacted at the time the erotic footage was still being played. The owner of the business could not be reached for comment.

Police will continue to monitor the shop and its advertising.

The shop itself offers peep shows, adult video rentals and toys to aid in the sexual experience.

yogaretnams@mymail.macewan.ca

EDMONTON — A new traffic monitoring system that has never been tried in North America aims to reduce drivers’ troubles on Yellowhead Trail.

German based logistics company Planung Transport Verkehr has asked the city to test its new Intelligent Transportation System technology because of the unique traffic conditions along the Yellowhead. The goal is to prevent traffic jams, especially at key intersections in the busy west end.

“The biggest bottleneck is at 127 Street, so moving away from there, the congestion becomes less and less,” said Wai Cheung, the project’s chief engineer. “But 149 Street is still quite a major issue. It’s not something we’d want to ignore.”

Sensors embedded in the roadway will record the volume and speed of vehicles that pass overhead. They will determine exactly how many people are on the road and how well traffic is flowing.

Information gets relayed back to a downtown central ITS lab, where traffic controllers monitor everything so that they can override the system and take over for any of the automated components if they breaks down.

As the same sensor details filter into the lab, they’re plugged into software that keeps a record like a digital map of the section of the Yellowhead and all possible side routes and detours within the area that the ITS system is looking at.

The software runs the sensor input through its program and then sends its results to tools called Adaptive Signal Controllers that will cycle the traffic lights at various intersections to maintain the best possible traffic flow.

By combining a number of different high-tech tools, the hope is that an ITS test phase can be a benefit to the 70,000 daily commuters — 20,000 of which are commercial trucks — that funnel into the busiest stretch of the Yellowhead between 127 Street and Anthony Henday Drive.

The trail is a “parking lot,” said Andrew Olsen of Attica Furniture Restoration Ltd at the 144 Street mark of the Yellowhead. He believes all the semi-trucks are a real threat “to life and limb.” Anything the city is willing to try to improve conditions on the Yellowhead would be worth the effort, he said.

“It’s crazy. Never mind rush hour, it was backed up this morning at 9:30 am. Well, it’s just not moving enough traffic,” said Olsen. “The day the Yellowhead opened, it was already over capacity for what they expected it was going to carry 10 years later.”

The initial upgrades to the sensors near the Anthony Henday are a little over a year away.

Unfortunately, the opportunity to use all that the ITS has to offer won’t be possible for about two years when the second phase of the system will see BMW-engineered technology increase drivers’ chances of avoiding traffic issues through a more interactive experience.

“The next step is to have in-vehicle navigation that provides information to the city and takes information from the city,” said Cheung. “So not only do you provide your route to our system so that we can predict how many people are going to use that route as well, but now we can also feed back information right to the vehicle about incidents or alternate routes.”

Despite the wait, the ITS system is considered a less expensive and time-consuming option then transforming the Yellowhead. With the project still in its testing phase, the final cost is still to be determined. Nevertheless, ITS technology is still much more affordable for taxpayers than a freeway expansion project, which Cheung estimates would be in the billions.

The Alberta government has already made use of ITS technology in its Fixed Anti-Icing Spray system, which automatically keeps ice from forming on the northwest bridge deck of the Henday, and real-time updates of road conditions that are already available to drivers going to and from Edmonton on the QE2 highway.

JagodzinskiJ@mymail.macewan.ca