[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto police cracking down on public sex in Etobicoke park"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star carries Cynthia Reason's article in the Etobicoke Guardian noting a police campaign against public sex in a south Etobicoke park. Is this in fact a marker of gentrification in the neighbourhood, as at least two people on my friends list have suggested? I'm completely unfamiliar with the neighbourhood, myself.

The month-and-a-half-old police operation, aimed at “taking back” the park, has netted 84 charges against 65 individuals in just the last few weeks alone, said Const. Kevin Ward of 22 Division’s Community Response Unit.

“We started Project Marie off with high-visibility presence in the park: stepping up our patrols, riding through the trails, and talking to everybody about what’s been going on and what we’re doing about it,” Ward said.

“Then we stepped into the enforcement period of the operation, where we have been operating in plainclothes in the park. And what has happened is that male patrons have been approaching our officers and soliciting them for sex.”

Some undercover officers, including Ward himself, have even had male patrons expose themselves to them in the Forty Second Street park’s secluded trails, pond area, and busy parking lot.

[. . .]

Jake Yoo, who lives close to the park with his wife and 21-month-old son, is one of those frustrated residents who has decided to work with 22 Division officers to help “take back” Marie Curtis Park.

“As a kid, my parents used to let us go to the local park on our bicycles unsupervised at a fairly young age. I would love to be able to do that with my son when he gets older, but if things stay the way they are, we won’t be able to,” said Yoo, a member of the Long Branch Neighbourhood Watch.