Amid ongoing wave of property crime, Kamloops business groups launch community safety survey

KAMLOOPS — A community safety survey, led by the North Shore and Downtown Kamloops Business Improvement Associations (BIA), is underway as the organizations look to get a clearer picture of how crime and community safety concerns are affecting businesses. Last year, the survey reported Kamloops businesses lost more than $1 million to property damage and increased security measures.

While the North Shore BIA has been running the survey since 2017, it has now expanded to include the entire city, and for the first time this year, T’kemlups.

For the next month, businesses across Kamloops will be helping to inform business improvement associations, the local RCMP and the city about challenges being posed by rising crime. Even before the surveys are completed, a couple of major retailers in Kamloops are reporting large losses.

“Have had in excess of $100,000 in theft loses so far this year, in addition to the security costs. There is very real impacts to business, because that $100,000 in loss plus $100,000 security officer, is $200,000. That is at least four staff — if not five or six staff — who they can no longer hire,” said North Shore BIA Executive Director Jeremy Heighton.

While many people may immediately think of retail stores for impacts of crime, the construction industry has been hit hard as well, both with losing materials to theft and increased security costs.

“The security here has been very, very difficult. We had to go to full-time guards. There are people consistently pressing to try and come in, whether they are taking copper or looking for a warm place to sleep, or somewhere to shoot up that is quiet. Pretty much as soon as staff is not working, we have people coming in,” said Karo Stein, Project Manager at a new apartment building along Tranquille Road.

Stein mentioned his usual security budget of $15,000 for the project has more than tripled already.

Elsewhere along Victoria Street, Cycle Logic employees arrived Monday morning (Sept. 18) to see their front window smashed. It comes after a number of failed break-in attempts in the past weeks.

“We have had a number of attempts, mostly in the back alleyway. Fortunately up until this point, nobody was able to gain entry but it is still costly for the business and for the staff and everybody else,” said Cycle Logic Manager Sean Daily.

Despite the bars on the windows, the thief was able to escape with a few pairs of glasses from a display.

Both Daily and Stein agreed that challenges in Kamloops have been increasing in recent years.

“Some of it is just senseless vandalism. But the violence in this corridor — it seems since the 2018 fires, a lot of people got moved to Kamloops and never got a ride home, because when we were working with just our day-to-day people, it didn’t seem nearly as bad,” said Stein.

While the results of this year’s survey will not be released until November, it’s expected a similar trend will be presented where authorities are called but lack the ability to enact change. And because of that, Heighton believes BIAs will have a big role to play.

“There is still a long way to go. We still got justice reform, mental health reform, prosecutorial guideline reform. There is still a whole bunch of stuff that needs to happen before our response forces have the ability to move forward in the most [effective] manner but at least we are starting down this road and getting this information together,” added Heighton.