The theft of a tip jar at Bay Village Coffee last month was the last straw for owner Alan Forbes, who took to social media with his concerns.
“I was frustrated that morning, and I was just venting online,” said Forbes. “That post had just really struck a chord with so many people and saw more than 250,000 views.
People began messaging Forbes with stories of their experiences.
“I even had people stopping into the shop tell me what their experiences have been. Even when I went shopping, people would stop and talk about it,” he said. “It was such a hot-button issue. Everybody wants to talk about it, and I thought, maybe we should start a community conversation. I don’t have the answers to these problems, but obviously they’re big enough problems that really lit a fire under a lot of people.
Forbes developed an online poll called Your Streets Your Say, which advised: “This is not a scientific poll. It is a snapshot of what engaged neighbours are seeing — and what you think would help.”
The survey ran between Sept. 30 and Oct. 4 and generated 816 responses.
“I’m surprised by the number of responses, but I can’t say that I was terribly surprised by the results. This is pretty much what I expected,” he said. “But one thing that did stand out for me that I was happy to see is that 58 per cent of people want more visible police enforcement, and 55 per cent want more mental health and addiction treatment. It shows that people want both. It can’t be one solution or the other. Neither one of those things is a solution on its own.”
The survey caught the attention of Thunder Bay Police Chief Darcy Fleury, who, along with eight front-line officers, visited Forbes.
“We had a good discussion about the issues,” said Forbes. He added that every single person he spoke with has seen somebody walk out of one of the big box stores without paying, and now it has just become normal.”
He said what’s really alarming for him as a business owner is that people now think that they can just walk out without paying.
“A small business can’t absorb those losses,” he said, adding that he can’t just raise his prices to cover the theft loss the same way bigger stores pass the cost on to customers.
“It’s the wild west, and it’s becoming a lawless society in that respect.”
Meanwhile, Forbes has researched what other cities are doing. He found one community developed an incident network for small businesses as a way for businesses to connect and to alert each other when an incident happens. The store would release an image of the individual stealing, notifying neighbouring businesses to be on the lookout.
“You would file a police report as well,” he said. “We would have a database tracking all the incidents, and the police would have access to that. I haven’t ironed everything out, but that was one program that really stood out to me, and we’re looking at that. ”
Forbes said the solution has to come from the community.
“It’s not going to be the government or the police. It has to come from us because the police can’t respond to every single disturbance. We have to come up with the solutions ourselves or at least be part of it.”
