Top cop: Tickets won't help

Photo: file photo

The Penticton RCMP "will not be able to enforce” homelessness out of the city, according to the city’s top cop.

South Okanagan regional commander Supt. Ted De Jager was before council Tuesday for a quarterly update, and fielded questions from councillors, — many of which are fighting for re-election — on public safety and vagrancy in the downtown area.

Coun. Judy Sentes asked if RCMP officers pour out open liquor being publicly consumed by Penticton’s street-entrenched and addicted.

“If that gets poured out, on a consistent basis, they don’t have the means to keep replacing it,” Sentes said, using a hypothetical example of a 24-beer a day alcoholic. “Wouldn’t that be a deterrent too?

De Jager said protocol stipulates they issue a ticket, but they would likely never see a dime from that enforcement. He added that putting too much pressure on the street-entrenched will degrade the relationship officers try to build with the homeless to help them into housing.

“Creating a barrier with a person such as that by trying to enforce our way out of that behaviour, is not going to help,” he said.

“We solve a lot of investigations based on the relationship that we we’ve made with some of the most undesirable of our community. That’s how we solve crime,” he added. “The notion that that’s going to cause that person to leave this community is somewhat misguided, because that person is from this community.”

Mayor Andrew Jakubeit pressed De Jager a bit, but acknowledged his point.

“If I went in a public place with a bunch of beers, I'm sure someone would come and dump those out, or if a 16 year old was there with a bunch of beer, that would get dumped out. But because they are 'chronics,' somehow there is some — well you explained the realities of it,” he said, saying there needs to be “a bit more of a concerted effort” from police in keeping undesirable activities from happening in public areas.

But De Jager said only housing can ensure those “undesirable activities” don’t happen in public. An addict may still be shooting up, but they’ll be doing it in their room and not Nanaimo Square, he said.

More than $50,000 in overtime patrols took place downtown this summer, while most of the new Community Support and Enforcement Team’s time was spent dealing with the street-entrenched.

Looking forward, De Jager said improved staffing will hopefully allow officers to target specific parts of the community with more frequency.