Several downtown Williams Lake business owners attended an open house last night (Wednesday) to share with the RCMP the problems they are experiencing.
Their concerns ranged from staff safety to the costs of having to repair damages, discarded drug paraphernalia to the cost of added security.
The open house was hosted by Williams Lake RCMP Sargeant Brad Mckinnon who said in the last few months Police have been very active in the community in terms of creating opportunities for officers to come in and complete enhanced proactive Police shifts.
“The goal of these shifts is to make sure you know we’re there. It’s also to make sure that we’re preventing and deterring crime. We ran multiple shifts per week, we ran them morning, noon and night and we’ll be resuming those again shortly because I think that they worked. I think they were incredibly impactful but we’re going to start enhancing this.”
Mckinnon said the next step is to start having their RCMP Crisis Response Service from Interior Health joining them on those patrols.
One business owners asked Mckinnon about having actual boots on the beat in the downtown core.
“We have increased our foot patrols in the downtown core, I’ve done it myself,” Mckinnon said, “I’ve been in every business and might not have seen you and I apologize, but it sounds like we still have a bit of work to do in this area. I can assure you that foot patrols have gone up significantly. I’ve talked about and considered bringing back a bike patrol, it’s a bit easier said than done. That is something I am considering doing. I don’t think we can get it for this Summer, but next Summer absolutely.”
Mckinnon said the spirit of the Open House is to have conversation.
“We’re aware there have been a lot changes in the community, businesses are being impacted by things and we’re here to help. I wanted to make myself available to you to hear what the concerns are.”
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