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Irked by a crime-ridden tent city that refuses to pack up — and assailed by threats when they try to stage meetings — a new Victoria community group says the picturesque B.C. capital has been taken over by “criminals and thugs.”

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“It’s lawlessness in Lotusland,” said Stephen Hammond, founder of Mad As Hell, a group campaigning against a massive tent city that has been allowed to flourish next to the city’s courthouse.

“What kind of city have we got in sleepy little Victoria in which all the attention is about the thieves and the thugs occupying that land — not the real homeless or real homeless issues — and there’s nothing being said or done for the taxpayers of Victoria,” he said.

The group, which takes their name from a line in the 1976 movie Network — “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” — planned to hold its inaugural meeting Thursday at Victoria’s Harbour Towers Hotel.

However, the hotel’s owners cancelled, saying they had received a number of unspecified threats, and Hammond has been unable to find a replacement venue.