Vernon businesses fight back
Darren Handschuh - Apr 17, 2019 - Biz Releases

Photo: Contributed

A petition is making the rounds in Vernon, asking Interior Health not to put an overdose prevention site in the downtown core.

The business owner who started the petition has asked her name, nor the business name, be published for fear of retribution.

She said she has already been harassed and her business vandalized by what she calls criminal elements of the street entrenched community.

Her concern, she said, is if an OPS is put in the city centre, it will attract more of the criminal element to the area, and many of her customers have already expressed concerns about the area of downtown she is in.

“There are lots of people who already don’t want to come here, so we have lost lots of clientele,” she said, adding one client was afraid to leave her store because a woman had all of her belongings spread out in front of the business. “That client has never been back.”

Her fears are an OPS in the area will draw “more unwanted people to the area. I have no problem with the homeless. They don’t bother us at all. They are being bothered by the criminals, too.”

And it is that criminal element on the street that is causing problems for everyone.

“I’m just one owner. There are dozens who have signed the petition,” she said, adding many downtown businesses have similar concerns.

“The fear for many of us is retribution,” she said of businesses not willing to speak up about the problem. “It’s scary.”

She said she is not opposed to the site so much as locating it downtown.

On March 25, representatives from Interior Health met with city council to inform them an OPS was ordered for the city by the provincial government as a way to save lives in the middle of the opioid crisis.

The big issue at council was where it will be set up. The announcement a site was pending sparked a lengthy debate among council, with some members wanting the city to have more input into where the site will go.

On April 8, IH announced it was cancelling its request for proposals for an overdose prevention site in Vernon and putting the project on hold.

IH will be seeking input from stakeholders about how the service is designed and intends to repost the RFP in the near future.

Overdose prevention sites provide designated spaces to monitor people who use drugs, and ensure that Naloxone and other lifesaving first aid is available in the event of an overdose.

Unlike supervised consumption (injection) sites, overdose prevention sites do not require an application for exemption from federal drug laws.


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