A damaged door at Red Collar Brewing in downtown Kamloops, one in a series of businesses damaged during a recent spree. (Photo via Red Collar Brewing)
The head of the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association is speaking out after a rash of break-ins at downtown businesses over the last two weeks.
KCBIA Executive Director Howie Reimer says he is aware of at least a dozen businesses that were hit in the early morning hours between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.
“There have been a couple where its just been smash, but there’s also been smash and grab, and all of it in the early hours of the morning,” Reimer said on NL Newsday.
“No sign of things during the day expect for the boarded up windows. It looks like most people have cased these businesses, and they knew what they wanted. They were in and out fairly quickly.”
Reimer says it appears that the people responsible may have ties to a local theft ring, telling Radio NL the police are investigating.
“They certainly targeted certain items that indicates they knew what was of value,” he said. “I don’t profess to be a criminologist, a police detective, but some of the Intel that I’m getting is that its looks to be sort of low-level organized crime.”
“I have spoken to the RCMP and they’re very well aware of what is going on. They’re pretty sure they have some people in mind, and they continue to do things that are much more high level on this kind of thing than I can speak to.”
Radio NL has reached out to Kamloops RCMP who expect to have more information about the series of break-ins next week.
Reimer is hoping this is not the beginning of a trend, pointing to recent data from the RCMP that showed that while there was a decrease in a number of types of property crimes like break-ins to houses and theft of vehicles in Kamloops, there was an eight per cent increase in break and enters at businesses.
“We continue to focus on repeat offenders responsible for this increase within our business corridors,” RCMP Supt. Jeff Pelley said, in a report to the City’s Safety and Security Select Committee last month.
Photo via Kamloops RCMP/City of Kamloops
The latest Safe Streets Survey from the North Shore Business Improvement Association showed that crime and crime-prevention costs are continuing to be a financial burden on businesses, to the tune of about $10,000 a year.
Reimer is urging business owners to be vigilant and to ensure that if they have cameras and other means to trying to prevent break-ins, they should ensure that it is operational. He is urging business owners to take advantage of the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce’s Vandalism Cleanup Support grant, which is meant to support businesses directly affected by vandalism and graffiti within city limits.
He is also directing people to a provincial program that is meant to help small businesses recover costs due to crime and vandalism.
“The criminals certainly keep their eyes open and they’re in and out of the businesses pretty quickly,” Reimer said. “We’d prefer to not be talking about remediation, we’d prefer to talk about prevention.”
“As great as our downtown is and vibrant and as fantastic as it is, its a little hard not to be a little bit angry and frustrated. You’re trying to do good work, you want your businesses to flourish, and sometimes you feel like you’re swimming upstream a little bit.”
