This all happened before I moved to Portland, but apparently a bunch of tenacious neighbors in SE Portland, around Division near Mt. Tabor, spent several years working to shut down a “nuisance site” at SE 57th and Division. The former Drive Thru Wake Up Deli—next to a Dairy Queen—was seized by the U.S. government in a drug case, and was then turned back over to the neighborhood on June 6.

Neighbors are now planning work parties to clean up the property and turn it into something useful, like a community center or a non-profit coffeeshop or a mini farmer’s market. It’s a classic feel good neighborhood story. (Everybody: “Awwww.”)

And U.S. Drug Czar John Walters seems to agree. His people in D.C. called the Southeast Uplift neighborhood office, to say that Walters is interested in visiting the Wake Up Deli site and “talking about this innovative partnership” between the feds and the community associations, according to a neighborhood email.

Walters might fly out on July 20. We’ll keep you posted.