Squamish's Downtown is sort of like a Jekyll and Hyde kind of place.
On the surface it is like most smaller community downtown quarters, with small mom & pop shops, a few restaurants, banks and various offices. During the day it is populated with families, kids, senior citizens and other productive members of the community. It is as friendly as Sesame Street, and as quaint as Mayberry.
But at night, Downtown becomes something a little more sinister, a little uneasier, and a lot more undesirable. As with any community, be it large or small, Squamish has a problem with drugs, criminals and those who live on the fringe of society.
This week that fact was driven very close to home, when a 'junkie apartment' was found right in The Chief's own BC Hydro meter room. This tiny space, accessible only from a door in the alley behind Second Avenue, was stuffed with stolen clothing, personal items and a biohazard container filled with abut 50 hypodermic needles. Police say this isn't the first they've encountered downtown. They say as one place is rooted out, another pops up somewhere else.
Car thefts, residential and commercial break and enters, drug dens and grow ops are commonplace and reported on nearly every week in The Chief's crime report. RCMP have been asking for increases in staffing and resources to combat this growing problem, but so far, they haven't gotten what they need.
But, these problems are not going unnoticed and are slowly getting better, it seems.
Last week, the District and RCMP started using bylaws to begin cleaning up sections of the Downtown that have been 'problem properties' for some time. And more bylaws are being contemplated to further combat the seedier and seamier aspects of our community. We're not talking about the merely homeless, here, not that homelessness is anything 'mere' to anyone. Those unfortunate souls who find themselves without means to support themselves (for whatever reason) are certainly not criminal by nature, but rather on hard times and either unable or unwilling to get out of that rut.
No, it is the deliberate criminal activity in town, usually related to drug use and addiction that needs to go. But, along with more cash and resources for law enforcement, we also need more funding for social programs and the like, which help break the cycle of addiction, and prevent the criminal activity a little earlier in the chain.
We can't totally eradicate the Mr. Hyde of our community, but with the right resources and determination we can see a lot less of his face.
