By Ian Holmes

Nanaimo council tackling downtown safety concerns

Jun 20, 2017 | 4:17 PM

NANAIMO — City council has approved a short-term plan to address social disorder concerns in Nanaimo’s downtown core.

The $45,000 interim strategy to improve public safety is designed to run through September and could be implemented within two weeks.

A private firm will handle security patrols, several people will be hired to clean-up litter and City staff will install two new needle disposal boxes at yet-to-be determined locations. Staff reported the eight existing needle boxes throughout downtown Nanaimo are well used.

City social planner John Horn told NanaimoNewsNOW there has been a noticable increase of “street entrenched” people in the downtown area over the last 10 months, the majority of them new to the community. Horn said that group, estimated at between 30 and 150 people, is driving the heightened anxiety levels for many residents.

He said the finding was made following consultations with City staff, local residents and business operators, service providers and RCMP.

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“This additional number of bodies has had an impact on the feeling and sense of people’s comfort levels in the downtown area,” Horn said.

He said downtown Nanaimo sees an influx of people over the summer and the City wants to “get in front of the situation.”

“Our goal is to hold the (line) so that we don’t see an increase over the summer in the amount of public disorder that people are experiencing,” Horn said.

Horn said the interim strategy to improve public safety downtown was drafted following formal concerns voiced during a recent public hearing where Council rejected a re-zoning application for a permanent supervised drug consumption site on Wesley St.

An overdose prevention site opened at 437 Wesley St. in February, an answer to the overdose epidemic gripping the province. Horn said the site has not been a significant contributer to the safety concerns.

Dave Lawrence, a Victoria Cres. business owner, told City Council Monday night the situation downtown has “gotten really bad.” He explained one scenario where he was approached by aggressive panhandlers on Cavan St., one of which threatened to fight him for not giving him money. Lawrence worried what kind of impact an encounter like this would have on somebody new to downtown Nanaimo.

“If that type of situation happens to them, it really paints downtown in a bad light and I just can’t handle that, that’s terrible,” Lawrence said.

Horn said in the fall City Council will be presented with medium and possibly long-term plans to improve social disorder concerns in downtown Nanaimo.

ian@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes