A Kamloops councillor and downtown business owner isn’t overly alarmed after a late-night stabbing on Canada Day.

Mike O’Reilly says the optics are not good, but he says in the five years he’s owned a business downtown this has so far seen the fewest issues on the street.

“It raises a little bit of alarm bells, but as we heard from RCMP the assailant and the victim did know each other. Safety as a whole in the downtown, it’s very safe, quite frankly for the entire city. Kamloops is a safe city to be in, the odd incident does happen once in a while and I consider this kind of a one-off,” O’Reilly says.

The stabbing happened just before 10 p.m. at 5th and Victoria, and a 31-year-old man has now been taken into custody. The victim, a 54-year-old man, was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Mounties say that witnesses reported the stabbing happened after an altercation.

O’Reilly commented on if there is a perceived increase of a disenfranchised population downtown.

“I would agree with that a year ago, or even a year and a half ago, but things downtown have changed. Since I’ve owned a business downtown, for almost five years now… This has been the year with the least amount of issues downtown. If we think that we’re ever going to have a downtown that’s not going to have any arguments or problems with it every once in a while, I think we’re fooling ourselves. It’s how we manage it.”

He says bringing significantly more social housing online in the Tournament Capital is a reason why social issues in the downtown core appeared to have decreased.