Prince George RCMP police chief Warren Brown is pleased with City Council’s decision to suspend the Queensway Court Motel’s business license for the next six months.
Council made its decision by a unanimous vote on Wednesday during a special meeting.
The property continues to rank as one of the top 10 crime hotspots in the northern capital when it comes to calls for police, seeing a 160% spike in that area over the last 12 months.
According to Brown, no other location or area in the city has experienced a similar increase during the same period.
Back in May, the area was the scene of a targeted shooting where a man was shot in the chest at the motel.
Brown is of the opinion a more proactive approach by the owners could have prevented this headache altogether.
“At the Queensway Motel, the management could have and ought to have done more to ensure the safety of people not only to in their place but also the volume of calls that we get there.”
“If there are unsavory-type people, if there are offenses occurring, maybe instead of letting it perpetuate, for instance, if there are people drinking, or using drugs in the parking or if there are drug transactions, people masked up with balaclavas and weapons I would think that the right thing to do would be to call the police as opposed to react afterward,” explained Brown.
As for what improvements could be made in the future, the police chief says the lines of communication between, hotel, its customers and the RCMP could be opened up.
“Rather than having one phone line so if a suite is to make a 9-1-1 call and ask for police support rather than the police going door to door it would be nice to have a phone system that would specify the location where help is required.”
The Prince George detachment continues to burn valuable time and resources into this crime hot spot, also putting a damper on some of the other safety initiatives they wish to implement between them and the city.
“We are accountable to the city, I am the Chief of Police and the city has given us eight additional police officers over the past number of years and I have to show that the taxpayer dollars are being used as efficiently as we can,” said Brown.
“The city has made it loud and clear they want road safety, speed enforcement as we get a lot of complaints and when I’m continually responding to violent calls to for shootings, attempted murders, robberies, thefts and break and enters and when I’m so exhausted at one location something else has to be done. It’s not an efficient use of resources especially when hotel management turns a blind eye to it and that is something we can’t tolerate as a community.”
The city and local police encountered a similar situation in October of 2016 with the then Connaught Motor Inn where the business license was suspended indefinitely due to crime as well as workplace hazards such as mold and asbestos.
While the doors were closed, crime decreased by a rate of 67% at the corner of Victoria Street and Patricia Boulevard.
The Inn needed to fulfill 15 city council obligations before re-opening to the public including an overhaul of electrical and plumbing units.
However, in March, the motel was sold to Kamloops-based developer Ron Mundi and was subsequently re-named the North Star Inn and Suites, reopening to the public during the spring season with the expectation all 96 rooms would be fully refurbished and rentable by the end of June.
One could also argue by shutting down these facilities by getting them up to code, you’re forcing out a certain demographic of people who may be tied to criminal activity and forcing them to uproot into similar accommodations ramping up the same habits elsewhere and not fully eradicating the problem.
But Brown says there is a solution to all of this.
“I don’t suggest for one minute that we are going to change the dynamic of people, there will also be bad guys and people who are revictimized and that’s just a fact of life and I don’t have control in its entirety over that but at the end of the day we have spoken with other problem locations in the community that are in our top 10 hotspots and management has utilized our resources and we have seen decreases in those locations up to 60%, here is a place that didn’t take heed and continued to manage blindly.”
He adds it’s not the motel that needs the break, it’s the residents who need the break and at the end of the day, Brown hopes to accomplish is rebuilding trust and confidence in the community to rely on the police when residents need their help.
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