Vancouver to increase police presence in Gastown to ‘triage the current situation’: Mayor

After homeowners and businesses said they want to see more patrols, Vancouver is taking immediate steps to improve its public safety in Gastown.

Vancouver’s Mayor Ken Sim says it is going to work with the Vancouver Police Department to establish a community policing centre in the neighbourhood.

He says the city plans to allocate funding they have received from the province into a community policing centre and while that gets up and running it plans to increase police presence in the area to “triage the current situation.”

“Longer term, we want to get to the root cause of the challenges down there,” he said. “To work on mandatory compassionate care for people who really need it, bail reform for repeat offenders, and policing our posts so toxic drugs stop coming into our city.”

Sim says anyone who is in Gastown deserves to feel safe whether they are residents or visitors.

“What we’re hearing in Gastown is you know, crime… The feeling of not being safe was a little more pronounced than in other neighbourhoods,” he said.

He says the city has been working on making the area safer through programs like the car-free program. Over the summer Vancouver made an effort to get more people on the streets, because “when you have busier streets with pedestrians everywhere, it becomes safer.”

The mayor says the safety also impacts the business community.

“Whenever you make things safer, people feel safer. It helps the business community,” the mayor said. “When people don’t feel safe, they don’t necessarily want to come into work, and it has an effect on those businesses.”

Sim says getting to the root cause of these challenges will make systemic changes.