Plaza environs becomes a crack alley
A block of rue St‑André that runs parallel to Plaza St‑Hubert has become an urban hell, with “une faune de rôdeurs – proxénètes, prostituées, trafiquants, toxicomanes et sans-abri” hanging around at all hours. Police have just swooped down on a low‑life bar and peep show cinema that have been the kernel of the problem for a long time.
I have friends who recently moved away from that block after they tired of hearing screaming and shouting outside at all hours, and people nodding off in their doorway.
Given that station 35 is down at the next corner, the police took their time.
A video report from Radio-Canada puts a slightly more positive spin on the situation, but it’s difficult to know whether this is the local councillor trying to buff things up a bit.
Ephraim 09:56 on 2025-07-21 Permalink
People don’t realize, the way to get the cops to act faster is to call and report more. So you talk to the neighbours and make sure everyone knows to report and call more often. Because what the police are really sensitive about, is your ruining their statistics.
walkerp 10:07 on 2025-07-21 Permalink
Still took them 5 years to act.
How does “rôdeurs” translate into english? The online dictionaries say “prowlers” and “rangers” but that can’t be right.
Kate 10:47 on 2025-07-21 Permalink
Wiktionnaire defines the verb rôder: “Errer avec une intention hostile ou suspecte. Errer sans but précis ou au hasard.” So, something between loitering and prowling, hanging around with no clear plan but an eye on possible skulduggery, I think.
Ian 10:59 on 2025-07-21 Permalink
How about “skulker”?
Blork 13:10 on 2025-07-21 Permalink
Upvote for “skulker.”
DeWolf 14:53 on 2025-07-21 Permalink
Mellön is a great place, it’s a shame to hear the (very genial) staff and owners have to deal with that kind of unpleasantness.
Kate 15:00 on 2025-07-21 Permalink
I was thinking of that too, DeWolf. I assume Mellön has effective bouncers, but then they also may be losing business because people don’t feel so comfortable in the area.
The hot spot that was raided is closer to the other end of the block, at least.
DW and I met each other by chance at Mellön recently. Great place.
Ephraim 18:53 on 2025-07-21 Permalink
@walkerp They weren’t complaining enough and didn’t get some newspapers, TV etc to come and visit. We used to coordinate calls from all the neighbours to the cops, so that the whole street ended up calling them. Each report is part of the stats.They repeatedly tried to get us to stop calling. We never stopped. The news showed up and the very next day we had two cars stationed on the street and patrols.
There are also OTHER ways to solve some of the problems. In particular, for prostitutes, you change the directions of the streets so that it’s difficult to get back to the street. So you can’t simply circle for “shopping” purposes. If it’s inconvenient for customers, they don’t want to be there, either.
Which of course brings back the question of why we don’t have a specific place for such nonsense. In some countries they have special parking lots for this. Away from children, often with a security guard or police. You are required to pull forward into a spot, which gives you cover for anything happening in the car. The driver’s side has a wall right next to it. The passenger side, doesn’t. So if they feel threatened, they can open the door and run, but the driver cannot. It’s so much more effective to actually build intentionally for such things than to try to be an ostrich with the head in the sand.
DeWolf 16:22 on 2025-07-22 Permalink
@Kate As far as I can tell Mellön doesn’t have any kind of security. Which is the case for most brewpubs since they usually don’t attract a rowdy crowd.
Ian 11:13 on 2025-07-26 Permalink
I take it back, skulker is good but I think prowler would be more correct.