A building corner in a downtown alleyway covered with smoke and fire stains. Zukowski says this issue needs to be addressed before a building burns down.

By Tommy Osborne

Downtown Crime

B.C. families paying an extra $824 in “hidden tax,” according to non-profit organization S.O.S

Feb 23, 2024 | 5:54 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Amid the recent release of the provincial government’s budget, the non-profit organization Save our Streets (SOS) says the average B.C. family is paying an additional $824 a year in a “hidden crime tax.”

Co-founder of SOS Jess Ketchum explained this number was found through information available through Stats Canada, plus its own stats found through loss prevention professionals. After compiling the data and figuring out how much it would cost an average business to recoup the lost costs of stolen items, hire security, and/or fix broken windows, it was revealed that all these costs would result in an $824 cost to families.

“It’s a cost of doing business to those businesses. It’s just like their employee costs, their advertising costs. It’s another cost to them. They have to replace the product, plus, they have to spend all the money on on the security,” Ketchum said.

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“Most people, myself included, think of those sorts of crimes as impacting companies, not me. Well, actually, it does. It affects me, my family and everybody else in the community, because those costs have to get passed along to someone,” he added.

Prince George is no stranger to crime, and spokesperson for the Prince George Business Owners Advocacy Group, John Zukowski says locally, this issue is costing us dearly. The group has more than 170 businesses, and Zukowski says the crime issue has gotten out of hand for these store owners.

“We understand there’s addictions and there’s the homelessness, and we understand all of that and all those things are being addressed. The one issue that’s not being addressed is the crime. We’re in a community, we have basic rules of civil order, and we’re asking for those to be upheld,” Zukowski said.

Like the SOS report, Zukowski confirmed that theft and damages to the property have shifted prices to the customer, and he added that an incident happens almost daily. Whether it’s theft, a break in, or fires every night in alleyways and doorways, Zukowski says action must be taken by the municipal government.

“The conversation has to start at the civic level and work its way up (to the province) for things that the city can’t address. They have to advocate to the province. You’ve got to work from the bottom up to get things done,” he said.

“The province isn’t responsible for policing small communities. The province is responsible for law and order. But the small communities have to turn around and pay for their policing, so it’s got to work from those communities up,” he added.

One specific issue Zukowski is quite concerned about is street fires and fires in alleyways. Explaining that this poses a huge fire hazard and could result in an entire building burning down, Zukowski says this issue needs to be addressed before something terrible happens. The situation is elevated by the fact that Zukowski says many businesses have been told insurance wouldn’t cover their building burning down, or wouldn’t cover enough to help the business recover.

“We’ve had fires around the back by the flower shop again. We’ve had fires in doorways every night, we seem to have a fire in the alley. And you turn around and you call the stuff in (to the police), it’s like, ‘you know, they’re just staying warm.’ Now look, fire is arson. Arson is arson. You want to have a fire, go to a campground. You have a fire in downtown Prince George in the back alley, that’s arson. It’s about time that we start upholding the laws.”

Expecting things to get worse before they get better, Zukowski hopes the municipal government acts swiftly to address these concerns, as downtown crime continues to take money away from both businesses and the customers.

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