Victoria Park to have say on drugs, police coverage

The business community in Victoria Park is meeting Thursday to share information over the closure of the Victoria Park police station and the opening of a supervised drug consumption site at the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre.

David Low, executive director of the Victoria Park Business Improvement Area, said the event, billed as “Our Changing Community: The Year Ahead,” is open to business owners and residents, and will feature a panel discussion with representatives from Alberta Health Services, Calgary police and new Ward 11 Coun. Jeromy Farkas.

“We’re really approaching it from a standpoint of let’s try and understand these changes before we even start talking about what we’re concerned about,” said Low, who will lead the panel.

“Because a lot of people, you know, they hear something and they immediately jump to ‘well, we’re concerned,’ without having the background information . . . it doesn’t really create a helpful discourse. So we want to try and start by unpacking what the change is and then move from there.”

Low said the improvement area has heard concerns from people about the supervised consumption site and the closure of the police station.

“The Victoria Park police station really did provide a certain level of psychological security,” said Low. “People knew that it was there — if I need to find a police officer for whatever reason, I know that’s where I can go.”

Low said the business association has also registered concerns with AHS about “the public realm” in relation to the supervised consumption site in the Beltline approved by Health Canada last month.

“We’re in new territory,” said Low. “Yes, there is a crisis. Yes, we need to be doing things about it. Yes, this has not been attempted before in Canada, inserting something of this nature into an existing clinical facility. “So we just want to talk about it.” Low said he expects Alberta Health Services to provide background on the Safeworks harmreduction program that has been operating in the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre and how a supervised consumption site will augment that service. He also expects to hear from Calgary police about how community policing has changed since the station first opened.

Farkas said he’s concerned about the loss of the only police station in downtown Calgary.

“I think it’s going to have a significant impact on the residents and businesses that it’s been supporting to date,” he said.

Calgary police have said the closure of the Victoria Park police station was prompted by efforts to improve financial and operational efficiencies.

The Victoria Park business community event will take place at Hotel Arts on Thursday between 5:30 and 8 p.m.