Business owners around the Town of Westlock are fed up with the crime in this town and are pleading for something to be done.
Town councillors heard the message loud and clear when a group of local business owners showed up at their Nov. 26 meeting to express concerns over Westlock’s crime rate and how they’ve been affected by it.
RCMP Staff Sgt. Al Baird was also in attendance to give his quarterly report to council so answered as many questions from the group as he could and met with them later that night after his presentation to council.
Coincidently, Baird’s crime statistics showed that break and enters, thefts and possession of stolen property crimes were generally on par or lower than numbers going back to 2015.
The group was not officially on the agenda, but mayor Ralph Leriger allowed for a few questions after Baird’s report.
Ehreth Horinek was one of the business owners in attendance. He is the owner of Precision Design, Precision Water and Westlock Powersports and Marine. His businesses have been broken into and robbed numerous times.
“I don’t understand why you have nobody on at nights,” he said.
“All of these businesses that pay the bulk of the taxes in this town have no security. There’s nothing. It’s up to the town to figure it out I think. I didn’t come to town, start a business here to worry at night when I’m sleeping about who’s ripping me off. It cost me $200,000 in damages this year.”
“We’re not a 24-hour detachment. Everybody knows that, the good citizens and the bad. We just don’t have the guys to do 24-hour policing here, we just don’t,” said Baird.
Leriger pointed out this is a problem that is not unique to Westlock.
“This is a problem that is happening across the country, and probably more in Alberta than anywhere. It’s something I hear from every mayor when we meet. It’s certainly not getting any better. We appreciate how frustrated you are and the amount of money you’ve spent.”
He added that it seem to be more of a systemic issue than a policing problem.
Horinek said later he would like to see cameras installed on all entrances into town to see who is coming and going at night. It would be helpful to know who is coming into town and how long they’ve stayed before leaving.
“At least you would have a car and a licence-plate number,” said Horinek. “If there was a break-in you would know that there was a car that came into town at 2 a.m.
“We have to figure out some other way to make it work. They use them in the city, they use them all the time and there’s nothing wrong with it. On one hand they say that people don’t like it. Well, who cares if they like it or not? It’s for the protection of the town and anybody who is bothered by cameras, maybe they’re the ones that are the problem.”
In the meantime, Horinek said he has got together with a couple other business owners and hired a security guard to patrol their businesses for suspicious activity.
Coun. Murtaza Jamaly shared council’s concern at the meeting saying they’ve lobbied the government every chance they get, on their own and through AUMA, to change the policing model in Alberta.
“Every single year,we do what we can as elected officials to ensure that the provincial policing model changes and the provincial government has responded year over year with a hard no. The reality is that our policing in the province is broken. It truly is broken,” he said.
“We are very much concerned. It’s not to say that everyone on council isn’t frustrated by crime within our community, but we are also stakeholders. More so than ever, now that we foot the bill,” said Jamaly, referring to the fact the town now pays for its policing since the population has exceeded 5,000.
Leriger noted detachments across Canada are short-staffed by 10-15 per cent.
“It’s very frustrating,” he said.
