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Whistler survives another Victoria Day weekend

Number of police incidents down, but concern still high
1521weekend
Zero Tolerance RCMP handcuff and search a young man for narcotics at Lakeside Park on Sunday afternoon. The man was later released, but other groups in the park were given tickets for open alcohol.

There were noise complaints, people causing disturbances, others drunk in public, a stabbing and even the police station was broken into as Whistler dealt with another rowdy Victoria Day weekend.

In all police officers dealt with 139 calls for service — that’s down from last year when they received 181calls.

“People were taken into custody for a variety of offences,” said Staff Sgt. Steve LeClair.

Added Sgt. Steven Wright: “We are down in terms of the number of files we investigated from last year, but that is not to say that we weren’t busy.

“For the most part people were well behaved. We were just dealing with groups of people who were troublemakers looking for trouble.”

The RCMP station was hit with rocks, a window was broken and two portable radios were stolen.

“Even we are not exempt or immune from crime ourselves,” said Wright, adding that all available officers were in the village when the 3 a.m. robbery occurred.

The warm weather last weekend also meant people stayed in the village long after the bars closed down, said Wright.

“…We found this weekend, because the weather was so warm, people weren’t going back to their hotel rooms so we were dealing with fights throughout the village, not on a large scale, but we were dealing with fights.”

For more than a decade Whistler has been trying to come to terms with how to keep the peace on the May long weekend when large groups of graduating youths, many under 25, come to celebrate. A significant number of extra RCMP officers are brought in, along with auxiliary police. Many hotels have introduced security measures of their own to keep youths from cramming up to a dozen friends into rooms, and bars and nightclubs have a zero tolerance for misbehaviour.

But scuffles and a general feeling of unease still permeates the streets of the village.

“Are we ever going to get rid of it?” said Whistler Councilor Bob Lorriman who also sat on a task force tackling the issues around the May long weekend.

“I don’t think so. But we need to let those law-abiding people, who want to come up here and have a good time, know that we are doing as much as we can to deal with it.”

The problem is not isolated to Whistler said Lorriman, pointing to the stabbing death at Cultus Lake in the Fraser Valley over the weekend.

“We don’t want to close our doors,” he said. “This is the business we are in and we are doing the best we can… but I wish it was better than it was.”

Of particular concern to Lorriman this year was the fact that police were responding to calls early in the evening.

“…That has me really concerned and I am not happy about that,” said Lorriman.

“That is before the bars even opened so people are buying alcohol at liquor stories and then going back to their rooms and drinking.”

Lorriman said Whistler is planning for the events and communication between all the different stakeholder groups is strong. He attends a monthly meeting with bar managers and owners, the RCMP, liquor control, and on occasion the fire department.

Joey Gibbons, of the Gibbons Hospitality Group, which operates Tapley’s, the Longhorn, and Buffalo Bills in Whistler, also attends those meetings. He believes communication is key to keeping the situation under control and that spreading the word that the bars have zero tolerance for drunks and their disorderly behaviour helped keep trouble away this past weekend.

“It is more of a control weekend (for us),” he said. “You just want to make sure things are safe because a different demographic does tend to come up here with graduation of high school and universities and so on.”

At the beginning of the weekend the RCMP officers who will be on patrol come past all the bars and clubs and exchange cell phone numbers with staff and chat about strategies for the evenings.

Gibbons said that personal touch makes a huge difference to the way issues are handled but overall the resort just has to come to terms to dealing with the complications that come with the long weekend.

“It is just the way things align,” he said. “And we deal with it and it is part of life.

“Everyone is doing the best they can do but at the end of the day unless we put a roadblock up in Squamish and not let anyone up under 19 then we are going to be dealing with it.”

Lorriman would like to see the accommodation sector take more of a leadership role with regard to dealing with events like the May long weekend.

“The bars and RCMP are working really well together and I think the next step is that we have some accommodation people that need to get on board,” he said.

“…I think there are still some out there who will take any booking they can get, so that is something we will have a discussion about and what can we do to mitigate that.”

Bruce van Mook, general manager of Whistler Premier Accommodations, has put in place a Whistler Property Managers Association. The group has been going for about a year and he hopes to open it up to others in the accommodation sector in the coming weeks.

“The reason we started this is because there hasn’t been any co-ordinated effort,” he said, adding that there were no reports of problems over the weekend in the 300 or so properties Whistler Premier manages.

“Whistler Premier is actively trying to bring this to fruition and I am looking to expand membership to the hotel sector.”

In the years van Mook has been here he has seen a definite improvement in the May long weekend as the community has come together to tackle the issue.

“I think the May long weekends have improved and the enforcement measures taken by the RMOW and RCMP are working, in my view,” he said.

Crystal Lodge general manager Bryan Pilbeam wants to try and turn next year’s long weekend into a family themed event to head off trouble.

“We would certainly look to be part of a solution or a program to work towards a lasting and impactful strategy for next year, perhaps a family-focused event or weekend that would probably benefit the resort across the board,” he said.

The hotel had to call the RCMP to evict one room full of rowdies who disregarded hotel warnings to quiet down.

“It can be a very disconcerting thing for our employees to deal with this and the threatening personalities,” said Pilbeam, adding that the hotel even raised the age limit for booking this year.

At the Hilton, non-returning guests had to sign a noise and damage waiver to book in, all room guests had to register and pay accommodation rates, and ID was photocopied.

Guests who had booked in with parents’ or friends’ credit cards had to get proper authorization or were turned away, and rates were higher this year than last.

Security personnel were stationed at all entrances and exits so that un-registered guests could not be sneaked in.

“The majority of people we were dealing with were under the age of 25 and you have to put your foot down somewhere,” said Mark Munn, the Hilton’s room’s division manager.

“It was more or less you co-operate with us and you can have yourself a good weekend, otherwise you can go stay elsewhere.”

The hotel did have one eviction but generally things went smoothly said Munn.

It’s an issue of balance, he said. The young Lower Mainland guests can make up a significant portion of bookings for the weekend and the hotels need the revenue.

“But there needs to be control,” said Munn.