CITY NEEDS TO ADDRESS DOWNTOWN PROBLEMS, DBIA PRESIDENT SAYS

The assault of a downtown business owner by a shoplifter last week is “absolutely disgraceful,” said the president of the Downtown Business Improvement Association.

“These issues of crime in the city need to be addressed more aggressively than it has been,” Eoin Foley said. “It’s extremely frustrating for the regular honest citizens of our community who are dealing with this on a day-to-day basis. I don’t want to let the city or RCMP off the hook but we also need to address this issue provincially because the judicial system is not working for the regular citizens.

“The crime that we’re dealing with on a day-to-day basis is a symptom of a much larger drug problem and it’s not being addressed. Locally we can fight it with police and a bit of outreach but obviously there’s no amount of policing that is going solve this problem.

“It’s tough in Prince George because we’re not just dealing with our own local citizens that are committing crimes largely because they’re on drugs. We’re dealing with a greater population from around the north. They’ve been flocking to Prince George, particularly in the last couple of years since we hosted a bunch of evacuees from the fires in 2016, 2017 and they realized life is easier on the streets of Prince George than it is in small communities around the north.

“This is an issue that Downtown Prince George always ends up talking about these days because it’s such an issue for all of our membership. We try to help our members promote their businesses, help make life easier for them and we’re constantly talking to the city and RCMP and Northern Health and other service agencies but it’s a battle where it’s hard to gain any ground on.”