Merchants on Edmonton’s trendy Whyte Avenue are putting their faith in a new silent partner.
Closed-circuit television cameras will be installed at strategic locations to monitor Canada Day activities, two years after a July 1 riot wreaked havoc and caused $165,000 in damages.
The Edmonton Police Service pilot project will also swing into action between Aug. 14 and 24, when the city’s International Fringe Theatre Festival descends on the Old Strathcona neighbourhood, Whyte Avenue’s home.
While police officials don’t expect a repeat of the 2001 spectacle, they do feel that the cameras could prove to be a helpful tool in restoring the area’s reputation.
“We would love to see if it works or not. We’re supporting it to see if it helps to cut down on violence, graffiti and increase safety or the perception of safety on the streets,” said Shirley Lowe, executive director of the Old Strathcona Business Association.
Above and beyond the actual cost of the physical damage to stores and city property, Lowe said media coverage of the riot “created an incredible imbalance in people’s focus . . . it created a perception that was overdone. We were virtually victims of that one event as media used the footage over and over.”
Whyte Ave., because of its large concentration of pubs and clubs, is a high-call service area for police, said EPS information officer Wes Bellmore.
“The real challenge is to police that area without allocating a tremendous amount of police reserves to one small area. As far as personal safety, Whyte Ave. is equivalent with other areas of the city,” said Bellmore. However, with more young people drinking there, there are more infractions such as having open liquor.
The cameras will record and monitor events 24 hours a day when they are in use.
But Bellmore stressed that the only reason the Fringe is being incorporated into the trials is because of the size and scope of the event – which can draw as many as 500,000 people, according to Lowe.
“The Fringe isn’t a problem. It is very well run. It will be the best test for the cameras. There are a lot of people and a lot of activity,” said Bellmore.
“I think we need to try this,” agreed Lowe. “There’s a lot of people here. (Old Strathcona) basically acts as a downtown space for Edmonton. This is the urban space, people come here to celebrate and it is necessary that we put in enough resources so people will continue to come here.”
Numbers from an Edmonton police survey show that 66 per cent of Old Strathcona merchants surveyed by Edmonton police believe the cameras will have a positive impact on their business, while only four per cent said it would have a negative effect.
In addition, 81 per cent said the cameras would improve public safety during the two events, while seven per cent disagreed with that statement.
More than four out of five respondents (83 per cent) said they didn’t think the cameras would infringe on the privacy of their customers.
The survey was distributed to 271 Old Strathcona businesses and received 117 replies.
Meanwhile, a second EPS survey, which polled 563 Old Strathcona customers, indicated 60 per cent favoured the use of cameras during the two events, with 29 per cent opposed. Sixty-three per cent thought it would improve public safety and 29 per cent disagreed.
Depending on the results, the cameras could become a full-time project, but Bellmore said it is premature to speculate at this point.
“Nobody wants to escalate to the next level of defence,” said Lowe. “It would be nice if we could roll the clock back 25 years but that’s not happening anywhere.”
The issue of using security cameras to monitor public spaces has raised hackles among privacy and civil rights advocates across the country. Federal privacy commissioner George Radwanski – recently under fire for his expense-account lifestyle – has been a strong opponent of police video surveillance of streets as a supposed crime-fighting measure, saying it is an unjustifiable infringement of privacy and violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“Video surveillance of public streets is the thin edge of the wedge that will irrevocably undermine the kind of free society we all want to live in,” he said in a speech last month in B.C., addressing the use of RCMP video surveillance cameras in the street party-prone resort city of Kelowna.
“One business leader in Kelowna said: “What’s the big deal? Having surveillance cameras on the streets is the same as having a police officer on every corner, and nobody would object to that,’ ” Radwanski noted.
“Well, there are places where there is a police officer on every corner – they’re called police states.”
