Tourism operator credits casino patrol unit
An incident that occurred during the long weekend at an attraction on Clifton Hill is just another example of how important the Niagara Regional Police’s casino patrol unit is to the Niagara Falls tourism core, says Niagara Clifton Group president Charlie Burland.
Burland, whose family has owned property on the north side of Clifton Hill for about 90 years, said fire alarms at his haunted house attraction went off around 1:40 a.m. Saturday.
Burland said he has hundreds of security cameras throughout his properties and footage showed one male in a group of young men grabbed a fire extinguisher in the middle of the Haunted House and shot it off.
It triggered the smoke detectors, which also impact the Travelodge hotel, a retail gift store, Ruby Tuesdays restaurant and other attractions.
“We had to evacuate hotel guests and customers out of at least a dozen of our businesses,” he said.
Burland said the fire department arrived on scene with a number of vehicles.
He said by around noon Saturday, the suspects were located in another hotel, and one of the men was charged.
“It never happens this way, but this time it did thanks to a large data base of email addresses of hundreds of tourism people, good video and the NRP casino unit.”
Burland said many of the people who operate a business in the tourist core are part of an email database of about 200 addresses.
When an incident happens in the area, such as vending machines being vandalized in the Fallsview district a few weeks ago, information is distributed throughout that database.
Burland said he sent an email out to his contacts Saturday morning explaining his situation and within 20 minutes, the head of security at a nearby hotel, responded to say “the guys you’re looking for are staying in our hotel.”
Burland said he contacted the casino patrol unit and officers attended and arrested the suspect.
“Before we had the casino unit, if we called for the police on a Saturday, it would be a minimum of three hours before they would show up, if at all,” he said.
“Now that we have the casino unit, we get them almost immediately. They were fantastic.”
Burland said operators in the tourist core are “very concerned” about the future of the unit in light of a staff report that is expected to go before city council in June looking into the unit.
“Hopefully we can come to some reasonable conclusions with respect to what they do, how necessary is it and what should be the cost to the City of Niagara Falls,” said Coun. Wayne Thomson during a recent meeting.
Thomson’s motion to have a consultant study the unit was unanimously approved by his colleagues in February 2015.
Ontario Lottery and Gaming used to pay $4.3 million for policing costs around Niagara Falls’ two casinos under its previous agreement with the city.
It was in addition to the annual flat fee of $3 million Niagara Falls received for hosting Fallsview Casino and Casino Niagara.
But under the current agreement with OLG, which is based on slot and table-game revenue and sees the city receive more than $20 million per year, Niagara Falls is now responsible for paying policing costs in the tourism area.
Thomson questioned why the city should be “double dipping” with Niagara Region, which is responsible for funding the NRP.
Thomson said he doesn’t have anything against the police, he just wants to make sure the expense to the city is fair and equitable.
The unit was established in 1996 after Casino Niagara opened to keep up with growth in the area. It covers 26 square kilometres. Burland said he’s not concerned with whether the city pays for the unit, or if the unit’s budget is rolled into the general NRP budget, a motion which regional council defeated in the past — he just wants it to remain operating.
He said the unit should be renamed to something along the lines of “tourist unit or the tourist core unit” to get away from the misconception that officers only deal with issues at the casino.
Ontario Provincial Police and casino security operate within the casinos.
“Basically on a busy holiday weekend, the tourist core has so many tourists in it, it’s almost like another city.”
In a previous interview with the Niagara Falls Review, NRP chief Jeff McGuire said police responded to more calls in the area surrounding the two casinos in NIagara Falls than they did in all of Port Colborne in 2014.
Burland said the unit “makes our lives a lot easier.”
“We can sleep better at night,” he said.
Burland said the unit provides peace of mind not just for the tourist operators, but also for their employees and families.
He said he has two teenage boys who work in his attractions until 2 a.m.
“The main industry in our city is tourism, and there’s thousands and thousands of people working (at all hours of the day and night). The casino unit … protects the tourists and keeps the destination safe and welcoming. It keeps the employees, the residents who work in the tourist area, feel safe. I’m sure there are parents who sit at home and their kids or their parents or their relatives are working down in the tourist core — it’s a level of comfort. We are an international border town, which is huge, too. We need to keep this unit.”