Quote of the week

“He’ll be torn limb from limb if he comes back to Montreal.” —An anonymous investor with Earl Jones, the West Island-based financial adviser suspected of ripping off $50-million from his clients. As of press time, Jones’s current whereabouts are unknown.

Cyclops eyeing sex

If you live in Pointe St-Charles, local police officers may have recently hand-delivered you a letter outlining your role in the suppression of local sex work.

The letter announces the continuation of Operation Cyclops—an initiative from the Montreal police that has been in operation since 2001—in the southwest borough. Residents who witness solicitation on the street are asked to note the details of the exchange and submit an observation report to police station 15, which also serves the neighbourhoods of Côte-St-Paul, Little Burgundy, St-Henri and Ville-Émard. The police then pay a visit to the client and ask him not to return.

According to Anna-Louise Crago of local sex workers’ rights group Stella, the gentrification of the red-light district is pushing sex workers out of urban areas and into residential neighbourhoods. “It’s a constant game of cat and mouse,” she says of the relationship with Montreal sex workers on the street. “[Operation Cyclops] makes working conditions far more dangerous for sex workers. With any measures that repress sex work into isolated areas, sex workers always pay the final and ultimate price for their own safety.”

For more information, contact Stella by phone at (514) 285-8889 or online at chezstella.org.

LINA HARPER

Humanity
on the Main

The various artists, hookers and urbanists fighting an almost hopeless rearguard action against the imminent razing and re-development of the stretch of St-Laurent between René-Lévesque and Ste-Catherine aren’t giving up yet. Another round of rallying and speechmaking is taking place this Saturday, July 18, at the Place de la Paix, under the rubric of “The Future of St-Laurent Street.”

Though billed as a press conference, organizers are hoping that a crowd of supporters shows up from 10 a.m. to noon to cheer on Dr. Jean-Dominique Leccia, a McGill psychiatrist, area resident and supporter of transsexual/transvestite-friendly showbar Café Cléo. According to Eric Paradis, a supporter and organizer, the event will be “in support of the Main as we know it. Dr. Leccia wants to bring an alternative view to the project based on the humanity of the area. We feel it’s important to preserve the human aspect” of any new construction—as opposed to canyon-like office towers dominating the strip.

Paradis, who has been performing in local alternative arts and fashion events for the past five years, says he sees a grim future for the strip “due to mistakes made by the city.”

For more information, go to artomoto.wordpress.com.

PATRICK LEJTENYI

Back to the West Island soil

For all those with an interest and/or stake in local agriculture, on Wednesday, July 22, the newly realized Urban Agriculture Conservation Alliance will be holding a meeting to discuss the state of agriculture on the island of Montreal while exploring ideas as to how permanent agriculture activity on the island’s western tip can be best maintained.

“Basically, we’ve been strategizing ways to make local organic food an option in Montreal and make sure the existing farms we do have here are viable,” says Taber Ward, spokesperson for the UACA.

“There are many lots still zoned for agriculture that nobody actually farms. The landowners are speculating these spaces for potential development—so the land just lies there, doing nothing, going sallow.”

Taber says the UACA has recently started working with the city of Montreal to make organic agriculture part of their conservation plan with respect to Montreal’s green spaces, “so you not only will have these protected green spaces, but through farming, they’ll be increasing the local economy as well.”

The fun begins at 8:30 a.m. at the Morgan Arboretum (21,111 Lakeshore) in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue.

For details, e-mail Taber Ward at montrealfarmland@gmail.com.

CHRIS BARRY

Mid-East at the movies

Local Middle Eastern social justice collective Tadamon! light up the night with a series of free outdoor film screenings on St-Laurent this summer. “We just wanted to show movies about the Middle East and tell stories that people weren’t necessarily familiar with,” says Tadamon! member Claire Hurtig, one of the coordinators of the series.

Things kicked off earlier this month with Gillo Pontecorvo’s legendary The Battle of Algiers, and continue this Wednesday, July 22, with the Oscar-nominated Paradise Now, about two friends who embark on a suicide bombing, by Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad.

The series concludes on Wednesday, Aug. 5, with West Beirut, which explores the turmoil of the Lebanese civil war through the eyes of a group of teenagers. “A lot of people don’t know very much about the Lebanese civil war,” says Hurtig. “It’s a really touching film.”

All films are in Arabic with English subtitles, and will be screened at 2035 St-Laurent (near Ontario), beginning at 9 p.m.

Organizers suggest bringing a blanket or chair to sit on. In case of rain, films will be shown the following week, same time and place.

For more info, visit tadamon.ca.

CHRISTOPHER HAZOU

Rear-view mirror

24 YEARS AGO - JULY. 18–AUG 1, 1985

On the cover:The NFB’s Kathleen Shannon, one of many filmmakers who feels the CBC won’t air any of the Board’s controversial documentaries, including the Academy Award-winning anti-nuke film If You Love This Planet, because, she says, “They said it was biased. Of course it is. Everything is biased…. There’s an incredibly pervasive bias throughout the CBC … so pervasive, it’s invisible.”
•An article examines Jehovah’s Witnesses in Quebec, after 1,003 were baptized in a mass ceremony at the Olympic pool. “The Bible,” says Witness Christian Mosiman, “indicates that God will interfere eventually in man’s affairs in our generation.”
•An article on “sludgeabilly monsters,” Deja Voodoo contains quotes from singer/guitarist Gerard Van Herk independent of the article’s narrative. “‘We are performers or entertainers, not musicians’ —Gerard” and “‘I don’t like modern music’—Gerard” are examples.
•In Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, “The nihilist starkness of the earlier films has gone. Degeneracy has been replaced decadent chic,” reads the review.

Angel >>German sex It’s not all dungeons and Scheisse videos. In fact, Germans’ attitudes towards sex are remarkably liberal, and, coupled with their similarly progressive environmental stance, open intriguing possibilities. The Maison d’Envie, a Berlin brothel (they’re legal in Germany) is offering a 5-euro “eco discount” to johns who arrive at the premise by bike or public transportation—thus setting an example that other, more tight-ass countries could learn from. In North America in general and Montreal in particular, prostitutes often work in unsafe areas and have to make split-second, potentially dangerous decisions whether to get into a client’s car. The Maison d’Envie efficiently and healthily dispenses with both drawbacks.

Insect >>Weaselly ISPs Appearing before the CRTC hearings this week on Internet traffic management, executives from the country’s biggest Internet service providers admitted and defended the practice of throttling traffic, saying market forces, not lawyers, should determine their practice. The ISPs claim increased users and P2P traffic are clogging up their bandwidth, but had little evidence to back it up. Critics like the Union des consommateurs and Internet law guru Michael Geist, however, were quick to poke holes in their arguments. The UdC said the providers wanted to choke P2P competition to their movie and music distributing arms, and Geist said the measures are clear violations of existing regulations on Internet access, and stifle innovation.