Five years ago, Suzette Wilmsmeyer was driving home from work in Los Angeles when she noticed seven helicopters circling her block, an upper-middle-class neighbourhood a kilometre outside Beverly Hills.

She turned onto her street. A SWAT van was blocking her driveway.

"There was some huge car chase or something," recalls Wilmsmeyer, who was fearful for the safety of her son, then just a year-and-a-half old. "The violence was getting to me, so I decided to come here."



She pauses, looks up and down Eglinton Ave. W., where she now owns a restaurant, and laughs: "Yes. I see the irony."

Her neighbourhood, with its low-income population and shuttered homes, has long had problems with drugs and related street crime. But earlier this year, all-out war seems to have erupted.

In two-and-a-half weeks, beginning in late April, four young men were shot dead within two kilometres of the Keele St. and Eglinton Ave. intersection. Half a dozen others have been killed in the same police division since January.

A city-wide analysis of crime trends pinpoints the area as one of two "hot spots" for violence. (The other is Jane and Finch.)

Police Chief Bill Blair deployed his anti-violence task force, TAVIS (Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy), to the area last month. Its arrival was timed to a massive drug sweep, Project Spring Clean, which closed dozens of grow-ops and crack houses and left 120 people facing more than 400 charges.

Two men arrested in the project, Shane and Sheldon Evans, are alleged by police to be the two leaders of the Five Point Generals street gang.

Last week, Blair celebrated 57 days without a homicide in 12 Division: "Knock on wood."

But TAVIS officers are scheduled to leave at the end of the summer. Their departure will leave peacekeeping to locals like Wilmsmeyer.





ON A RECENT Friday morning, Wilmsmeyer is in front of her restaurant, Z Bar and Grille, finishing a cigarette before the lunch rush, her curly, chin-length red hair tucked under a black baseball cap.

Z Bar, a four-minute walk east of Keele, is one of the few sit-down restaurants in the area, so Wilmsmeyer knows most of the locals by name: families from the apartments across the street, the crackheads, hookers and drug dealers working the alleys behind her shop.

Since opening the business three years ago, Wilmsmeyer has found unique ways to coexist with her sometimes challenging neighbours. She keeps a bowl of condoms by the bar for the local prostitutes – or embarrassed teenagers.

It's a neutral zone, she says. On a typical day, local cops may be snacking on jerk chicken in the front, while known gang members shoot pool in the back.

"Everyone is welcome, as long as they follow the rules," she says.

Rule No. 1 is: No colours, no patches – no exceptions. For the most part, gang members respect her wishes, tucking their bandanas into their pants pockets before entering.

Back in California, Wilmsmeyer ran customer service for a dot-com firm and dabbled with stand-up comedy in the evenings. Her sense of humour is her biggest weapon.

When some bikers sporting gang patches stopped by in May, they complained about Rule No. 1.

"You can either turn that inside out," Wilmsmeyer said, disappearing behind the bar and returning with a fuchsia-coloured T-shirt, "or you can wear this."

They chuckled and changed.

Police cooperate, too. When officers come by on breaks, she asks if they could park down the street.

"No one is going to come in here if three cop cars are parked outside."

Before moving to Toronto, Wilmsmeyer had no ties to the city. She and her then husband were visiting and fell in love with the clean streets and friendly people. At the time, the L.A. housing market was booming and the loonie was at 63 cents. They were able to buy a house near the restaurant outright.

"It actually belonged to a crackhead with five kids. Her advice to me was get pregnant, get a divorce and start collecting the government cheques."





SGT. JAMES HOGAN pedals south down Trethewey Dr. and hangs a left on Eglinton. It's the first week TAVIS is on the streets and he is still getting to know the area's nooks and crannies.

"The way I like to think of it is, TAVIS is kind of like having surgery. You go in and the doctors fix the problem. Now that you're better, you may have to change certain behaviour to stay healthy."

Officers flood troubled areas, weed out the bad apples, persuade residents to trust police and then leave locals to essentially watch out for themselves.

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The initiative has proven so successful it's being studied across the world. It has already been adopted by more than a dozen forces in Ontario. Paradoxically, the problems the Keele and Eglinton area is now facing may have been caused by the unit's success.

Crackdowns in neighbouring divisions over the past few years have pushed dealers into the area. Keele and Eglinton already possessed the necessary ingredients for a burgeoning drug trade – including high unemployment and low education levels.

Police believe the global recession then stoked the flames. More dealers were fighting for fewer buyers and dwindling turf. By spring, police intelligence showed a spike in drug dealers.

"Most of these people aren't even from here," says a frustrated local BIA chairman Steve Tasses, standing behind the counter of Variety and Video, a shop he's run for 25 years just three storefronts from Keele and Eglinton. "We just have to be ready for when they leave."

In 2006, the BIA purchased 22 custom lampposts to illuminate the sidewalks and 40 trees. Mosaic sidewalks were reconstructed. The streets were lined with fresh flowers in summer.

The BIA recently got the go-ahead to hire a community development coordinator, Mark Fernandez, who has been listening to residents' concerns and signing up volunteers.

Last month, Fernandez met 23-year-old Manuela Carreiro in a local park. The single mother, who lives nearby, offered to help. At a recent barbecue to launch the TAVIS initiative, Carreiro and her sister ran a face-painting booth for kids.

"I worry for my son sometimes, living up here," she says, "so anything I can do to help."

Councillor Frank Di Giorgio says landlords are having trouble finding solid business tenants, so they're more likely to accept seedy tenants, such as booze cans.

"Property owners need to take more responsibility, there's no question, but so many really good things are happening there too," Di Giorgio says.

But no matter how much they accomplish, Tasses knows one shooting can unravel it all.

"Whatever we do ... if there's a shooting or a stabbing and it makes the newspaper, it sets us back and we have to start all over again."





WILMSMEYER knows all about starting over.

Z Bar initially launched as an Italian-style pizza and burger joint, but Wilmsmeyer soon realized that wasn't going to work.

"There just wasn't the call for goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, gourmet pizza up here," she said wryly.

One night, she rented the place to a group of locals. A Caribbean chef served jerk chicken and pork to a packed house. He never left.

Even with the makeover, Wilmsmeyer is barely keeping afloat. Between the recession and escalating violence, it's hard to get people to come north of St. Clair for a pint. Business at her tattoo parlour next door is just starting to pick up.

"You know, it's funny," she says, waving goodbye to a customer. "I really think here is one of the friendliest parts of Toronto. You go to Bloor (St.) or Mt. Pleasant (Ave.), there's not that vibe. There is something really good here. And I won't be defeated."