Pawn shop owner donates $5,000 to help fight crime
Amid last week’s headlines about Penticton’s unenviable crime rate and a failed proposal to hire more police officers, a downtown business owner opened his chequebook to show his support for the RCMP.
“We’ve always had a crime problem — most communities do — but I just feel like the public has been hard on the RCMP,” said Mike Schyrbiak, owner of Mike’s Pawn Shop at 333 Main St.
“I think (the police) are doing a good job — there just isn’t enough of them.”
With that in mind, Schyrbiak handed over a cheque for $5,000 to Mayor John Vassilaki on July 29. At a special council meeting just hours later, Vassilaki held up the cheque to demonstrate community support for his proposal to immediately request five more RCMP officers from the force.
The plan was defeated 4-3, although council later voted unanimously to immediately request two more Mounties and hire a consultant to make recommendations to improve public safety.
Schyrbiak hopes the city to cash his cheque anyway, perhaps to support a program like Crime Stoppers.
“If we got together as a community, as a group — even other businesses, if they want to chip in too
— I think our problem is not that big of a problem that we can’t deal with it if we all stick together and all help rather than complain.”
Schyrbiak also acknowledged that his shop, by its nature, draws on more policing resources than some other types of businesses and felt it important to give back for that reason too.
It’s not the first time Mike’s Pawn Shop has stepped up for the community. In 2017, the business donated $2,500 to sponsor Project 529, a registry that helps return stolen bikes to their owners.
City manger Donny van Dyk said the municipality appreciates Schyrbiak’s commitment to Penticton and is still figuring out exactly how to spend his latest gift.
“These funds will go to proactive community policing with a focus on property crime reduction,” said van Dyk.
Statistics Canada released fresh data last week that put Penticton’s crime severity index at 14th highest among 325 communities in Canada with populations over 10,000
And in 2019 – the most recent year for which data is publicly available – each Mountie in Penticton had an average caseload of 170 files. That was by far the most of any detachment in a B.C. community with a population over 15,000; the next highest was Prince George at 134.