Merissa Dinner doesn't understand why her self-described "mobile harm reduction site" - also known as Safe Space - has been effectively banned by the City of Sault Ste. Marie.
Dinner was slapped with a trespass notice by Sault Ste. Marie Police Service on behalf of the municipality last Thursday, barring her from setting up what the police service has described as an ‘injection tent’ on city property.
“It was a very new approach with us,” said Dinner, speaking with SooToday Tuesday. “We’ve had police officers that came down and helped shovel [snow] for a candlelight vigil, and that was on city property.”
“The city has been very, very lenient and very passive about what we’re doing, because I involved them in the beginning.”
Dinner denies claims on social media that people were ‘shooting up’ in or around the Safe Space tent, which she had been setting up both in Jamestown and at the intersection of Gore Street and Albert Street East on a regular basis prior to being barred from city property.
Comment threads in social media groups also indicate that Dinner has been setting up the Safe Space tent close to a neighbourhood park and playground in Jamestown. Sault Ste. Marie Police Service confirms that it has responded to two calls for service at Safe Space, one of which being a complaint about the site operating within close proximity to a park. The other call for service was for a potential assault. No charges were laid in either instance.
Dinner says a protest was staged, picket signs and all, near the Jamestown site in the days leading up to receiving the trespass notice from the city. She believes that members of the public have been spreading disinformation in an effort to stop her from operating the site, which was usually situated close to the Community Wellness Bus that was launched by community stakeholders earlier this year.
“I don’t know exactly who has started the issue or why the issue has started, but we’re far enough away from the park where kids don’t see what’s going on. There’s no injection going on under the tent,” said Dinner. “We have many parents that access our services, so we have kids at our site, which scares people.”
Dinner maintains the only drug use taking place in or around the tent is the use of cannabis, which she says is used as an alternative to harder drugs.
“We really support cannabis substitution, and I would rather everyone be smoking pot under the tent instead of people shooting up,” she said. “We provide that option for people, and if someone is sick or going through withdrawals we’ll provide them with an alternative, and that’s where we’re really different.”
Although Dinner has petitioned the federal government for an exemption that would allow Safe Space to operate as a site for injections, it's not recognized by Health Canada as a supervised consumption site.
“We don’t push injection. We’re not hoping that we see people injecting - that’s not our goal in life. But we need somewhere that if people are going to use hard drugs, they need to know that there’s people out there that aren’t going to judge them for it. And they don’t feel that in the hospital setting,” Dinner said.
Dinner says Safe Space has been operating since launching in January, which is why she's surprised by the sudden turn of events.
“I just try and fill a need where there is a need, and that means we’ve had to adapt. If things change, and someone doesn’t want us on their property, we can accept that. We will work with that,” said Dinner. “We will totally work within the city’s policy. But the issue is, when I’m under the impression that we’re okay at nine o’clock in the morning, and then I get served at three o’clock in the evening - that I can’t be on the property - it just seems like backstabbing and sly stuff.”
A similar trespassing notice was issued to Sudbury Temporary Overdose Prevention Society (STOPS) by city officials this past Friday for operating a volunteer-run consumption site in downtown Sudbury.