Prairie Bylaw Enforcement (PBLE) issued its final report to city council Aug 30, hot on the heels of its final day of providing services to Thompson on Aug. 31.
The report detailed PBLE's activities from April 1 through Aug. 19, a timespan in which it dealt with a total of 9675 incidents - an average of over 68 incidents per day, or one incident every 21 minutes.
Of those 9675 incidents, the most common were cases of open liquor - a total of 5473 occurrences during that span, in which liquor was disposed of in 2389 incidents or 43.6 per cent - and loitering, which accounted for 3838 incidents, or 39.7 per cent.
There were also 578 incidents classified as "drunk and disorderly", 342 caused disturbances, 207 cases of littering, 160 parking incidents, 51 cases of public nudity, 24 incidents of panhandling, and two counts of smoking in a public place, both in June.
Summons were issued in 72 cases - a rate of slightly more than one summons every two days - with the most prevalent being 34 summons for parking violations. There were 22 summons issued for drunk and disorderly conduct, 11 for urinating or defecating in public, three for littering, one for a traffic violation, and one for participating in a fight.
There were 1046 requests for service received by PBLE in this period, an average of over seven calls per day. The majority of such requests, 727 or 69.5 per cent, were made via phone, with an additional 322 coming from outside agencies, 280 in person, and 39 through the civic office.
On the other side, there were 647 cases referred to other agencies for assistances, including 288 lodgings under the Intoxicated Persons Detention Act, 241 instances in which the RCMP were contacted, 121 incidents in which other accommodation was located, 18 ambulance calls and 8 referrals to the homeless shelter.
A total of 93 property standards notices were given out on behalf of the City of Thompson, including 37 graffiti notices - all but one of which came in April - as well as 31 notices for garbage, 23 derelict properties, and two for vehicles stored in front yards.
In comparing 2010 to 2009, the results are a mixed bag. Cases of open liquor rose from 4609 between January and August 2009 to 7140 for the same period in 2010 - a 35 per cent rise, exactly the same percentage growth seen in liquor disposals, which went from 1963 to 3014. However, outside requests for service were down slightly - from 1771 to 1699 - and incidents of causing a disturbance also fell, from 743 in 2009 to 6t8 for the same amount of time in 2010.
Aug. 31 marked the last day of PBLE service in Thompson, ending a nearly three-year relationship between the company, owned by Dave Prud'homme, and the city. The contract between the two was slated to end almost seven months later, but after council reduced the PBLE budget from $456,250 to $306,250, PBLE opted not to accept the cut in return for a reduced level of service.
One long-running point of contention between the city and the province was that the Manitoba Department of Justice repeatedly refused requests from the city to allow PBLE officers to lay charges under the IPDA, as is the case in Winnipeg. Instead, the bylaw officers were only permitted to enforce municipal bylaws.
The RCMP has beefed up its presence in the downtown core, according to detachment head Insp. Ken Poulsen, but as of yet council has not made any decision on setting aside an extra $250,000 per year to hire two new RCMP officers to patrol the downtown exclusively, as was suggested by the public safety committee.
