Shocking signs help improve McCauley area park

Residents in Edmonton’s McCauley neighbourhood say a series of signs that have been erected in one of the nieghbourhood’s playgrounds is helping to deter undesirable activity in the park at 96 Street and 108 Avenue.

The McCauley area is notorious for prostitution, drug activity and violent crime

The signs indicate that no selling or using drugs, sleeping, drinking alcohol or mouthwash, or ‘bodily functions’ are allowed in the park, and include illustrations to go along with the instructions. Father Jim Holland of Sacred Heart Church, which is next door to the park, put up the signs on the fence of the park two years ago. Holland said after years of dealing with the neighbourhood’s problems, he decided to put up the signs to try and change the behaviour in his community.

"I sometimes have to go behind the church and pick up piles by human waste." Holland said Thursday.

The city had initially taken the signs down because they were considered offensive, but Holland put them back up, and the city says they can say as long as neighbours don’t object.

Residents who frequent the park say the are has been cleaner and credit the signs for the improvement.

Holland is now offering the signs to those who might want to put them up in other parts of the neighbourhood.

The city has also agreed to put in portable toilets to help fix some of the problems in the park.