The Executive Director of the North Shore BIA says some members were frustrated after a meeting last night with city staff and the RCMP.

Jeremy Heighton says the meeting was a way for members to voice their concerns directly to officials.

He says the NSBIA has been working with the city and the RCMP for some time now to try and address those concerns.

“In regards to moving people along and open drug use and petty criminality,” he said. “By the time it was over, I can say that many of the business owners remain frustrated and understand the challenges and limitations of RCMP to respond. They left feeling like ‘well, we didn’t really get what we wanted out of that’ unfortunately.”

He says the issues are not limited to Kamloops, adding the NSBIA will continue to work to find a solution that works for everyone.

“The challenge for many of us is that it’s not going to happen today. It’s not going to happen tomorrow. It may take a number of years for us to really get the ear of politicians to get policy in place and to change some of those aspects of what we hope will be some solutions to this long term problem.”

Heighton says the BIA will continue to work with officials in the hopes of finding solutions that work for everyone.

“RCMP were very clear that they are somewhat restricted in what they can do based on current legislation and guidelines. So we will continue to work this file with politicians, with representative agencies, with our service providers. We will just continue to push this rock up the hill, and eventually we hope to get to the top.”

In all he says about 75 members attended the crime forum last night, noting the two hour meeting ended up lasting about four hours.