(This column was published in the North Shore News on May 12, 2004)
Taxpayers pay for beer day in the park
By Leo Knight
IN the same issue of the North Shore News on Friday, that carried a letter from North Vancouver RCMP Supt. Gord Tomlinson distancing the Mounties from comments made in a letter to the editor from Cpl. Tom Seaman, was a page 3 story detailing the results of a drunken brawl at last year's Hose Reel Festival.
Seaman's letter was written as a response to North Vancouver City Mayor Barbara Sharp's comments made during a council meeting reviewing a request for $25,000 in extra police funding for this year's drunkfest.
Sharp said, "I thought taxpayers already paid for policing through taxes."
I feel certain that Sharp is not intrinsically stupid, albeit, you couldn't prove it by that particular comment.
But she does have a background with fairly responsible jobs including a significant period as a mediator with the Labour Relations Board.
Admittedly, she was a labour representative, but nonetheless, it is a delicate and challenging position.
But really, to suggest that the normal complement of police assigned to a routine Saturday afternoon would be able to cope with the couple of thousand drunks spilling out of the so-called family event while dealing with the routine break-ins, car thefts, shopliftings, assaults and domestic disputes is really beyond the pale.
In Vancouver, whenever there is a concert, Lions game, Canucks game or whatever, the police decide what coverage will be accorded in the interests of public safety. The costs for that extra policing are borne by the event stager, not the taxpayer.
And the coverage is provided by off-duty officers leaving the on-duty members to deal with the normal day-to-day insanity.
In an editorial, this paper asked, and rightly so I might add, what is the point of spending $25,000 of taxpayer dollars to pay to police an event that generates around $12,000 for local charities.
It's a good question.
Ever since the firefighters of North Vancouver have staged the Hose Reel Festival, what is billed as a family event has steadily declined into a public drunken embarrassment to the North Shore.
Every year, the North Vancouver RCMP are asked to approve a permit for a beer garden that accommodates 2,500 to 3,000 persons in a fenced-in area of Mahon Park. Every year, the Mounties must provide extra police officers to deal with the ramifications of those people consuming enough beer to drown an army.
This year the Mounties asked for some extra funding to assist with their keeping a lid on the drunken flotsam and jetsam.
It is that reality that triggered the letter written by Seaman. And he was right when he said, "What used to be a family event has now been taken over by the beer garden. Young people from all over the Lower Mainland come for just that, and many of them drive to and from the event."
In 2003, the police made eight arrests and broke up numerous fights. Sharp was quoted in a subsequent News story clearly showing she had her head firmly planted in the sand. She said she hadn't heard any complaints about the festival.
"I was there. I saw it. It looks like it always looks," she said.
Maybe so. But that was the thrust of Seaman's letter and this paper's editorial.
And, if Sharp hasn't heard any complaints, then clearly she hasn't been paying attention.
In 2001, one man was arrested for weapons offences. Twelve people were arrested for various offences and numerous fights were broken up.
This is what was reported in this paper following the event: "Const. Dan Guilfoyle said there was a 'strong police presence' at the annual event because of alcohol-related problems associated with the beer garden in past years. Problems included fights, assaults, impaired driving and hit-and-runs."
In an editorial in 1998, this paper had this to say: "Billed as a family event, there are few parents who would have waded into the beer garden last weekend. Pot smoke wafted through the crowd, and as the day wore on drunks began to exercise, both verbally and physically, their wobbly wills. Over 100 kegs were consumed in a six-hour period.
"Hundreds of families line Lonsdale Avenue for the parade, but many skip the Mahon Park festivities because of the beer garden environment. That's a shame," concluded the piece.
If the Hose Reel Festival is going to continue with a beer garden that has become the central attraction then it must be policed.
That funding should not come from the taxpayer, but from the stagers of the event, much the same way things are in Vancouver and the police must have the ability to decide what the coverage should be in the interests of officers' safety and public safety.
If the costs of policing the beer garden amount to more than the event raises, then that becomes a decision left to the organizers.
As far as the letter written by Tomlinson saying the comments of Seaman do not represent the views of the RCMP, that is true.
But Tomlinson has to maintain a difficult balance in keeping two mayors and two councils happy with the way their police dollars are spent.
He cannot afford to have the RCMP go to war with any one mayor of those councils.
But his words do not detract from the accuracy of Seaman's letter nor do I think that they erase the stupidity of Sharp's comments.
I wouldn't vote for Sharp in this lifetime or the next.
But, for the time being she does have the chair and she needs to be responsible to all the taxpayers.
I understand she is getting into a pissing contest with the Mounties now over this whole debacle.
She may be married to a retired firefighter and the Hose Reel may be close to her heart, but whatever her personal feelings are in this, I think her statements in council and her actions since are grossly irresponsible.
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