Riley Brandt

If there’s one thing inherent about concepts, it’s this: they’re often better on paper than in execution.

Never was this more apparent than when I accepted an offer to write for Fast Forward Weekly’s Nightlife issue. “Follow the beat cops on a Thursday night, or a weekend,” wrote arts and lifestyle editor Drew Anderson in an e-mail. “See what they deal with for Nightlife.”

I assumed this would be a relatively simple task. After all, much fuss had been made in recent weeks about the 62 beat officers assigned to stroll Calgary’s downtown. If one’s perception was based on headlines alone, the core is festering with gun-toting gangsters, crazed drug addicts, aggressive panhandlers and the like. How difficult could it be to track down one of these flatfoots dealing with such a wide assortment of ne’er-do-wells on a Friday night? (I would later learn there could be as few as four of them on duty at any given time depending on the day and time.)

On a whim I conduct a weeknight test run. Leaving Sunnyside, I weave my way along the streets, around the office towers, condos and cranes until I hit city hall. Yet something is amiss as the sun begins to set. The one-block stretch along Seventh Ave. S.W. between First St. and Centre St., for instance, is missing the requisite whispered offers of hash (or at least what’s advertised as hash).

Even for a Wednesday, the city seems devoid of the usual cast of street characters: the bottle collectors, the panhandlers, the dealers and the addicts. The closest thing to what might be called “social disorder” occurs when a well-heeled gentleman throws his cigarette butt on the ground outside Teatro. Maybe I should have brought a whistle.

After two hours, nary an officer — on foot or otherwise — is spotted. I convince myself Friday will yield better results. The next day I call the Calgary Police Service media line to line up an interview.

No dice, says the spokesperson. Maybe next week.

I ask where the hotspots are, hoping to increase my odds of a sighting.

I don’t want to label any particular area as such, he responds, deftly dodging any potential for controversy over his remarks. (Alberta MLAs may want to take note of this particular skill.)

Undeterred by my failed initial scouting, Fast Forward Weekly photog Riley Brandt and I head out shortly after 8 p.m. Friday. We do spot a couple of officers near the infamous CrackMacs on Eighth Ave. S.W., but they are in a car and soon drive away. Not what we are looking for. We soldier on toward the East Village, both lamenting and celebrating our career choice.

Along the way we pass the old Cecil Hotel, empty, silent, boarded up and soon-to-be relegated to the annals of history. Which is too bad really; they served the best C-Plus and vodka screwdriver in town. Nearby at the Drop-In Centre, clients line up along a chain-link fence waiting to board a transit bus to take them to one of the centre’s satellite shelters. In the middle of the road sit four police vehicles. Officers buzz tightly around them like bees to a beehive.

“Watch out,” yells a man as he stumbles past us. “They gots Tasers.”

“Ummm… thanks.”

Brandt snaps a few shots. I secretly hope something happens. Anything. Hell, Taser me. I need a story, dammit. The bus pulls away and shortly after, so do the police.

I begin to regret my choice in footwear as we make our way east. Chuck Taylors. What the hell was I thinking? Fine for, say, sitting, but walking? Not so much. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but no athlete, least of all a basketball player, would play in these things. Podiatrists must bankroll the marketing campaign. What other group would have such a vested interest in cashing in on a generation suffering from plantar faciitis? Think about it.

As the shin splints soon ease to a dull yet constant pain, our attention turns to the sounds of Sled Island emanating from Olympic Plaza.

“Hey Howell,” yells my slurring, Pilsner-clutching, red-faced editor from behind the green metal fence. “How’s the search going?”

Not so well, I tell him. But he assures me it’ll be fine and to stop worrying.

Fucking drunk. Though I’d undoubtedly say the same thing in his state. I contemplate submitting the article in another language. Yet despite three years of French immersion the best I could do was conjugate “to be” in the present tense. I settle on handing it in late.

With the smell of beer, music and my editor’s laughter still lingering in the air, we head to the Beltline area, where, according to the trusty interactive CPS Crimes Web Mapping Application, over 750 offences (the bulk being thefts, vandalism and assaults) have occurred in the past six months.

But the closest act of violence we see is when a gold-chain-wearing, 250-pound gorilla steps out from behind the wheel of his Mercedes to threaten some hipster kid — who’s about half the size of this Cro-Magnon’s brow — with a beat down. The kid wisely walks away.

As midnight strikes, we decide to call it a night. Things may pick up later but I’m not getting paid by the hour. I knock back a beer and head to bed.

“The biggest issue that we saw downtown was the declining perception of safety by the public,” police Sgt. Nina Vaughan tells me a few days later. “Although the stats didn’t support it, people didn’t feel safe downtown.”

Aside from a 1,300-per-cent increase in attempted homicides (thanks gang warfare), police stats show most serious crimes have declined over the past year by between 1.7 and 9.5 per cent.

“Perception is reality for many people,” says Vaughan, adding a variety of social disorders (rowdiness, graffiti, public intoxication) can become entrenched and fester into more serious crimes and instill a sense of fear in the community. “You can tell them they’re safe all you want,” she says. “But if they don’t feel safe, they don’t feel safe.”