Word: laurents
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...enclave of cool. Roller-bladers fizz through its parks, students and locals with time to talk and money to spend fill the cafés and clubs, posters tell of a vibrant arts scene. But up near the Old Town, in the shadow of the gothic St. Laurent Church, the tolerance and discreet charm of the Lausannois has been stretched to the snapping point lately by scores of African asylum seekers peddling cocaine on its ancient, narrow streets...
...Laurent's social aid and detox clinics show that the district and drugs are no strangers. But for everyone, the place has been getting scary. "Day and night the dealers were out on the streets in force, fighting with each other for turf and customers, being aggressive to passers-by," says Jean-Pierre Clavien, a local shopkeeper. "They created fear and insecurity in the neighborhood." Last week all that aggression culminated in the death of one dealer - an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone - who was stabbed in the liver, apparently after giving chase to a buyer...
...January, after talks with the Group and local shopkeepers, represented by Clavien, Lausanne's police department launched Operation Alpha, and relief for St. Laurent now stalks the streets in the shape of Patrick Martin. In black combat gear and bullet proof vests, touting an array of dissuasive weaponry, Martin and his six colleagues of the Alpha Squad are a no-nonsense message to the cocaine dealers, a comfort to the locals and, in the end, probably whistling in the wind. "They aim for visibility," says Christian Séchaud, of the Lausanne police, and to scare dealers off the streets...
...undesirable and the unenforceable. He and the rest of the Alpha Squad are relentless and polite, though the African dealers claim they are being targeted on account of their color. "I understand that they feel this way, but we're just doing our job," Martin says. Some in St. Laurent think the effects are cosmetic. "The dealers are like a swarm of flies - they disappear when the police come, only to reappear a few hours later, bothering people and scaring the hell out of us," says a local resident. Others in the area, including Marti and fellow members...
...Rive Gauche and cosmetics arms of Yves Saint Laurent were sold to Gucci in 1999. The designer has not embraced the collections of the label's new head man American Tom Ford, but the public has, and sales more than doubled the first year. Saint Laurent hung on to control of his first love, the couture house, which ran at a loss of $11 million a year. It will not continue beyond him. Couture has been pronounced dead many times before, but his departure may be the coup de grace. With an emphasis on the grace...