Sechelt is seeing significantly more break and enters than this time last year.
Statistics presented as part of Sunshine Coast RCMP Staff Sgt. Poppy Hallam’s strategic plan update for Sechelt councillors June 10 show 25 break and enters in the district during the first three months of the year, with 11 of them in March alone.
Hallam said the numbers for April, which were not included in the quarterly report, also show a similar trend, but May was “not as bad.”
Hallam also told the committee that the strategies the detachment has been using to investigate those crimes may have created the impression RCMP have been less visible in the community.
“I had to put some of our officers into surveillance positions to look at some of these properties that we believe are fencing, and this is in the District of Sechelt, that are taking stolen goods… My [general investigation] teams are completely covert right now. The general public would not know that they’re out with you or mixing with you.”
Hallam said police visibility remains a top priority for her, but she felt a shift was needed to “really track some of our more serious crime and some of our serious prolific offenders.”
Mayor Darnelda Siegers asked Hallam for details on the 25 B&E cases, most of which were in the downtown area.
Hallam said 10 officers were involved in investigating three separate files related to the theft of prescription pads from the Sechelt Medical Clinic.
“We caught that suspect [and] there was a couple of suspects involved who were passing or attempting to pass forged prescriptions at a couple of our local Sechelt pharmacies.”
Charges have been laid in that case.
Hallam said March saw two break-ins at Gibsons Building Supplies, an attempted theft of propane tanks from Canadian Tire, and a theft of batteries from the Coast Cable office.
Storage sheds belonging to Sunshine Coast Community Services and a pet food store were also broken into and, in one unusual case, somebody got into the Royal Reach Motel who was looking for a place to sleep.
The January and February break-in files included incidents at the evacuated Seawatch subdivision as well as a handful of downtown businesses.
Hallam also said RCMP have not made any arrests in the theft of $10,000 worth of tools from a Spani Construction job site on Gale Avenue North, despite having good descriptions of the suspects.
Meanwhile, the district plans to rebrand a Business Watch program it launched in late April as “Community Watch” and continue it at least into the early fall, Siegers said in a June 4 appearance on Eastlink Community TV.
The program, part of the district’s response to the COVID pandemic, was modelled on a similar initiative in Gibsons.
“The consensus was that this was a valuable program,” Siegers said. “You never can tell what you are stopping from happening – it’s what are you preventing.”
The initial funding came through the province as part of the support for local operations during the provincial state of emergency, but that money is no longer available. Siegers said the Downtown Sechelt Business Association is ready to provide some new funding and the district is looking for a long-term funding source.
