In a last-ditch effort to have its concerns heard, the Chinatown and Area Business Association has gone to court to try to shut down a supervised consumption site in Edmonton’s downtown core.

The group, mostly made up of Chinatown residents and business owners, says they weren’t properly consulted.

“It just seems that whatever avenue we take, we’re not heard,” said Holly Mah, a member of the association’s board of directors.

CABA has applied to have Health Canada revoke the exemptions it gave to the sites to allow illegal drug consumption.

Mah runs an optometry clinic in Chinatown and believes the injection sites keep customers away by “stigmatizing our neighbourhood.”

She insists the community is not opposed to social services, but that the issue is in how the sites were established.

“We’re not arguing about the merits of drug injection sites,” Mah said. “We’re arguing about their location, and their concentration, and the fact that Chinatown has not been heard whatsoever.”

She is also critical of the location of all three of Edmonton’s supervised consumption sites in the downtown core, at the Boyle McCauley Health Centre, Boyle Street Community Services and the George Spady Centre.

However, Ward 6 Councillor Scott McKeen said “data showed that the most dire part of the crisis was in and around the area where the three micro-sites were established.”

While CABA spends tens of thousands of dollars in court, a lawyer with Liberty Law has praised the sites’ importance on Twitter and pledged to represent them pro bono.

A federal court will hear arguments from the lawyers on both sides on Dec. 10.

According to Mah, CABA will accept whatever ruling the judge makes.

With files from Jeremy Thompson