The Executive Director of the ASK Wellness Society says he has an idea who might be behind a petition that is demanding the removal of the agency from Merritt.
The petition claims that the RCMP has told Merritt city council that ASK Wellness is responsible for an increase in drug related crimes.
Police have denied being involved in any such report to city council, and Bob Hughes says he doesn’t want to point fingers.
“It gives us a bit of an opportunity to connect with the community around what services we do provide in Merritt and Penticton and obviously Kamloops and to debunk some myths about what organizations like ASK do and don’t do.”
The petition goes on to claim that ASK Wellness brings in people from Vancouver, and is responsible for an increase in local drug-related crime.
“I can’t say more clearly that in no way would we ever participate in that kind of activity. The communities we work in have their own significant challenges, that it sure wouldn’t warrant wanting to bring anybody else into the community,” Hughes added.
“It would be frankly unethical and something we would never involve ourselves in.”
Meanwhile, the Mayor of Merritt says there has been an increase in crime and other issues downtown, but she says there’s been noting yet to link it to clients of the ASK Wellness Society.
“We know that there are individuals in town that are not local, and we think that these are the ones that are creating some of the crime,” said Linda Brown. “What we can’t be for certain is that these are residents of ASK. We do know we have a lot of drug addiction in town and we have to work on that aspect of it.”
Brown says there is a meeting set for next week with the city and ASK Wellness Society.
“Everyone is feeling the crunch, feeling the crime. There’s a lot of drug addiction and it’s creating first the petty crimes and they are starting to increase, and they are getting more and more people walking away with some of their things,” she added.
“You know residents are having to lock up their goods in the backyard, and this is a small town, we’ve never had that issue before.”
As for removing ASK Wellness from Merritt, Brown says the organization has contracts with BC Housing to operate in her city, and removing them from Merritt is not something city council can do.
