Saskatoon residents will see more police downtown over the next few days
From Wednesday to Friday of this week and next, Saskatoon Police Service (SPS) officers will conduct an “education by enforcement” initiative to reassure potential visitors to the area.
The commanding officer says extra patrols usually take place in the summer and winter — but recent data shows an increase in drug deals and people with open alcohol.
“It’s not a real big secret that people are coming into our downtown area noticing there has been an increased level of these types of things happening,” Acting Staff Sergeant Andrew Kiesman said.
“They don’t feel that safety that they should be feeling coming down to eat or shop or use the businesses in our downtown area.”
The executive director of the downtown business improvement district said even small disturbances, like open alcohol infractions, affect the community.
“Having a presence of police officers, that helps to create not only the belief that (the area) is safe but it helps with that perception as well,” Brent Penner said.
“Some people refer to them as nuisance offences, but if somebody is drinking in public, those sorts of things need to be enforced,” he said, adding he wasn’t saying the police weren’t enforcing the laws.
He said he had seen an increase of nuisance crime in the past year, though the pandemic has resulted in less property crime.