Port Alberni is not the only community on Vancouver Island seeing an increase in property crime, says Port Alberni RCMP Officer in Charge Inspector Brian Hunter.
Hunter presented his quarterly report at an Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 24. The report covered statistics in the Alberni Valley from July to September. Port Alberni RCMP received and responded to 3,924 calls for service, 676 of which were in the ACRD. Total crime has increased from the previous year, said Hunter, and is mostly driven by property crime.
“Property crime is up across the Island,” Hunter explained. “It’s not just the Alberni Valley.”
Property crime in Port Alberni has increased by 30 percent in 2018, said Hunter. This is comparable to a 59 percent increase in Oceanside and a 24 percent increase in Nanaimo.
Port Alberni RCMP will be working with the Island District out of Victoria on a “Regional Crime Reduction Unit.” This will involve gathering members from neighbouring detachments to help combat what Hunter calls “travelling criminals.”
Hunter reiterated that the majority of property crimes in the Alberni Valley are committed by chronic offenders, stuck in a cycle of “arrests, jail, release.”
“We’re really trying to reach into the community to get to the ‘root’ of the issues so we don’t have to arrest anymore,” said Hunter.
He attributed the province’s opioid crisis to the cycle, noting that “drugs definitely feed property crimes.”
“Lots of people, for whatever reason, get into that situation in their life where they get addicted to opioids and their life just crashes,” he said. “It’s a community that’s going to solve this issue. Policing is just a couple of spokes in that wheel.”
During his report on Wednesday, Hunter also spoke to the issue of local cannabis shops, after two of them were raided last week following cannabis legalization.
READ: Two Port Alberni cannabis dispensaries raided on legalization day
“I absolutely do support legal storefront cannabis shops,” he said, adding that this is a great way for the community to access safe and legal products, and also a way for RCMP to control the underground market. “But we need to do it right.”
New provincial legislation and regulations require cannabis to be sold exclusively at government-run stores, licensed private retailers and the B.C. government’s online store. At this point, no retailers in Port Alberni are provincially licensed.