Library has become a hangout for drug users

To start with let me say I am an avid reader and member of a book club that has been running for a good many years. We enjoy the fact that our public library has book club kits and use them frequently. I love the feel, even smell of an actual book, so I use the public library for my selections.

Over the last year I have become very concerned with the physical shape of the building. By that I mean its cleanliness. Now that the renovations are complete it almost seems more obvious that something is amiss. On two occasions I have come face to face with syringes and people shooting up. The first occasion was when I used the washroom in the basement just off the children’s area and found a syringe on the floor of a stall along with copious amounts of blood and some tissue.

The second time it was lying outside the entrance on the north side of the building. Just the other day I saw a young man crawling out of a niche at the front of the building and was told by a City worker, cleaning up debris, that the young man was not in fact sleeping there but shooting up.

What has our library become? The outside is strewn with discarded pop containers (if that’s what is actually in them), wrappers, paper. You name it. Why would anyone let their children in the place; certainly not alone. I am so disheartened with this whole situation and, yes, I have made a point of letting the library know of my concerns.

Apparently, federal buildings must all have sharp containers in their washrooms. Why isn’t our safe injection site good enough for them?

It is obvious that the addicts do not have the same concerns for our safety as we do for them and the library has become their hangout.

Donna Linn

Lethbridge