The Executive Director of the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Area says owners in the Seymour Street area want the space cleaned up.

Carl DeSantis says it’s seeing higher incidents involving the vulnerable population and it’s having an impact on the business community.

“Some of the behaviours that I’ve heard about are negatively impacting the people coming into businesses; restaurants. When they see drug activity for example, right in front of the door of a restaurant, it discourages people who have a right to go in and have a lunch,” he said.

“But, it scares some people. There’s an elderly population within that vicinity… it negatively impacts our businesses. That’s something we need to accelerate and I don’t know what that looks like.”

He says he had a meeting last week with area business owners, city councilors and other participants including Interior Health.

Possible quick fixes could include moving the mobile safe consumption van, but he notes how that doesn’t solve the problem.

“There’s no single answer that’s going to respond to these issues. We’ve said this before and we recognize and appreciate this is not a downtown Kamloops issue. This is not a Kamloops issue. This is a global issue; the vulnerable populations and the impact they’re having throughout the world.”

Desantis says some other potential solutions could be implemented right away, while others need more discussion and could require council approval.

 

By Jeff Andreas