By Cheryl Jahn

Zero Tolerance

Downtown Advocates want zero tolerance

Feb 27, 2020 | 3:59 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Zero tolerance.

That is what the Prince George Business Owners Advocacy Group is demanding after City Council voted to fund additional police presence in the downtown.

“It’s long-time overdue. There’s been an increase in crime over the last few years and it’s become unacceptable to the store owners,” says Bernie Schneider, who speaks on behalf of the Advocacy Group.

RCMP Superintendent Shawn Wright says what the additional patrols will do is “give us additional capacity in the downtown core, particularly presence, through foot patrols, bike patrols. And have time to interact with people down there.”

“Zero tolerance” for Schneider and other downtown businesses means criminal activity results in an arrest. But Supt Wright says there isn’t an appetite for that.

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“Generally, social issues, such as drug addiction if they’re non-violent in nature are not best suited to go through the criminal system in today’s day and age,” says Wright. “Essentially, open drug use, we can prevent that or at least minimize that with our patrols and interactions with those individuals.”

If that’s the case, says Schneider, then there’s a double standard applied.

“If you’re a drug dealer, you can sell drug up on Ospika and you can go to jail. If you’re a drug dealer and you’re dealing drugs in downtown Prince George, you don’t go to jail,” muses Schneider. “So, is that the message that Crown wants to send? Is that the message the provincial government wants to send? And the federal government for that matter?”

He says, with his zero tolerance push, the Advocacy Group is not targeting the homeless population, but the criminal population.