My Neighbourhood Drug War and the danger of West End streets

A little bit ago, one of the more notorious houses on my street had a bit of a drive-by shooting. Just a bit of one, mind you; no one died, and my motto has always been "I'm not worried unless death is involved," so when a news crew showed up on my doorstep and wanted to talk to me about violence in the West End I responded with nonchalance bordering on naivety.

I maintained that I had lived in the area for about 18 years and I had never feared for my safety, went on a monologue about how nice it is to live here, and encouraged viewers to come on down and tour the neighbourhood.



I didn't mention the part where people threw a brick through our porch windows, or list how many times I woke up in the morning to find someone had smashed all the windows of my car (when I still had one), or share the hilarious story of that time that woman stole my brother's shoes (and it is, in my opinion, a hilarious story, mostly because it didn't happen to me). I figured viewers might not fully grasp the amusing nature of these stories.

Anyway, the only clip of me that actually got on the news was a 5-second bit where I vaguely noted the house that was shot up was a drug house "of some kind".

However, now I feel like I might have misrepresented the West End slightly, to the news crew if not to the viewers of the channel. Because while I'm not really afraid of the drug war that rages on, now that we're having a proper January, I am afraid of the West End streets, in a very literal sense.

The most likely way for the average bystander to be injured on a West End street is to try walking on one in January. I've gotta say, I'm much more wary of sneaky patches of black ice than I'll ever be of roaming street gangs. Seriously, you should have seen my brother after that time he got jumped by an icy sidewalk. Maybe I should call up CTV and show them the bruises on my knees.