A City in Crisis: Business

Nov 20, 2019 | 4:32 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Downtown Prince George, as has the rest of the City, is under siege from a crisis. An opioid crisis. The downtown is the epicentre of that crisis, the dark underbelly of the crisis. Overt. Not behind the closed doors of a residential neighbourhood. And business owners are speaking out.

“Business owners are being assaulted, threatened with dirty needles, people using the outside as a toilet. There’s dirty needles, garbage. On a daily basis, people are cleaning it up,” says Bernie Schneider of the National Hotel.

He hears from business owners on both sides of Queensway and in the Gateway, where the problem is obvious.

But it is distressing for Mayor Lyn Hall who looks at all the progress downtown in recent years.

“You talk about businesses that are closing. I’ve got to tell you, that’s a shot in the gut for me. Because of everything that we’ve done. And everything that we’ve done downtown from an economic development perspective to always, always assist and promote and develop and revitalize the downtown,” he says. “So when I see all the development and I hear that a business that may have been around thirty, forty years or ten years or ten days says “I can’t do this.’ I look over my shoulder and think about all that we’ve put into [the downtown] and, now, you’re leaving. But I get it.”