Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue city administrators says they’re not getting enough help from Montreal police to enforce two-metre COVID-19 social distancing rules, and that the lack of proper policing is jeopardizing the health and safety of residents.
The problem, the say, is most acute on Ste-Anne Street, the main artery through the city when the weather is warm and people flock outdoors.
“It is very difficult on a small street like this, a narrow street like this, to get people to respect it,” Mayor Paola Hawa told Global News. “It’s crowds on the streets, it’s bikes on our main road when the rules are one behind the other, but they ride three or four deep side by side.”
With warm weather on the way — including the upcoming Victoria Day long weekend — city officials fear a large influx of people to the area. Residents have also noticed the lack of policing recently.
Warren Eastveld said the last time the weather was warm and people converged on the street, there was hardly any police presence.
“Maybe two or three police units show up right around 5 o’clock after everybody was gone,” he claimed.
“They just patrolled through the town and they just left.”
Mayor Hawa said what irks her is that the city is not getting service they pay for. As a de-merged city, the municipality pays the city of Montreal $6.5 million for services.
Roughly a third of that, Hawa said, is for policing.
“A little city like ours pays $2.1 million a year for that service,” Hawa stressed.
“I’m not asking for more, I’m not asking for less. I’m just asking for a level of service that is equivalent to the amount that we pay.”
One police station on St. Charles Boulevard in Kirkland serves five demerged cities on the West Island — Kirkland, Beaconsfield, Baie-D’Urfe, Ste-Anne-de-Bellvue and Senneville.
Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle thinks the problem goes way beyond policing during the pandemic and that the demerged cities are not getting their money’s worth of services from Montreal
“The demerged municipalities like Beaconsfiend and Ste-Anne-de-Bellvue pay way higher fees than the services that we get in return,” he insisted.
“We are unfairly treated by the agglomeration and essentially by the city of Montreal.”
On Monday Ste-Anne city council passed a resolution asking that the level of policing there be equal to that offered in Montreal and its boroughs.
Despite interview requests, Global News did not hear back from the city of Montreal or the Montreal police service. The city of Ste-Anne de Bellevue says it will continue asking for more services.