Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce is calling for more action from the top to combat crime, as calls for help stabilize but the violence of the crimes escalate.
Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce met with Nelson Police earlier this month to discuss the continual challenges law enforcement face and the frustrations of the judicial system.
“A couple of incidents were more violent than normal. There was a break-in in one building, there was another one where the staff member was knocked unconscious and then police had to be called, and the person had to be tasered to get them under control and there was another incident on Vernon Street a few weeks after that.” said Tom Thomson, Executive Director Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce.
“These incidents were becoming a bit more frequent and they’re not to the point where they’re life-threatening, but they were concerning and we just wanted to make sure that we had an engagement with the police and with the city.”
“I don’t think there’s a major increase in crime but the visibility of it is certainly there and it also makes people feel a little bit more uncomfortable and vulnerable when they’re going downtown, and they feel like there’s a possibility of having something like that happen in front of them or even happen to them.”
Nelson Chamber says they will be taking their concerns to the provincial government, local MLA, Federal MLA, calling for harsher reforms.
“We want to advocate to senior levels of government, a provincial level to look into court reforms and the bail reform systems, trying to make it a little bit better for the police and for the community at large.” said Tom Thomson.
Thomson says there is often a handful of individuals causing a lot of call out for police with very little repercussion, especially for those considered petty crime.
“It’s not necessarily something that the court system wants to deal with, but when there’s so many calls, from just a handful of individuals, it becomes a situation that causes more stress to the police, it causes more stress to community members and often within 24 hours sometimes of committing an offense the person is back out on the street causing more challenges.”
“We want to make our downtown core and making it safer for everyone.”
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