7 hours ago
‘Plywood Avenue': Chamber asking city to help with rising cost of vandalism, security on businesses in Saskatoon
Taylor Cross has had her fair share of run-ins with safety concerns and vandalism nearly two years after opening Seven Sundays on 2nd Avenue.
A little more than a month ago, Cross received a text message from a fellow business owner that one of her windows was smashed. She arrived at work minutes later to see that it was from a large rock thrown through the window.
'It was definitely the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Being a new business, we're just shy of two years being downtown. It's unfortunate when our staff doesn't always feel safe coming in to work downtown.'
Cross says she has learned plenty about operating a business on 'Plywood Avenue,' as other business owners have come to call the street after repeated vandalism. She says she has had to protect her staff and business in a number of ways, and she thinks the city could do more to understand the concerns from business owners and address growing problems.
Jason Aebig, the CEO of Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce, agrees. His team recently organized a survey of 263 businesses from across Saskatoon, which found security costs, property damage, and frequent encounters with vulnerable populations are on the rise – and it's affecting their bottom lines.
'We've talked for some time about the invisible costs that's borne by our local business community -- just regular small and mid-sized companies that are also dealing with the impact of this challenge and in many ways are absorbing those costs into their business,' Aebig said.
'That doesn't get included as part of the calculation, and we wanted to get some better data to understand what that really looks like.'
Key findings of the survey reveal that 85 per cent of businesses report increases in security costs, 58 per cent of businesses say insurance premiums have increased, and 25 per cent of businesses experience 'incidents associated with vulnerable populations on a weekly or more frequent basis.'
Aebig says these issues are also persisting in more places than ever with areas like Stonebridge reporting vandalism and interactions with homeless people affecting business operations.
'We are hearing from businesses in suburban centers that are now dealing with similar challenges to what we've traditionally heard downtown,' he said.
Seven Sundays
Seven Sundays had its front window smashed earlier this spring. (Submitted/Taylor Cross)
According to Aebig, not only are more businesses investing more money into training staff or hiring external security to manage and communicate with someone experiencing a mental health challenge or episode of psychosis, but they're also not reporting crimes to police altogether.
'They are not engaging police in these cases because they feel that the response will be slow or completely non-existent,' Aebig said. 'So, they're absorbing 100 per cent of the costs for repairs, vandalism and other challenges.'
Cross says the broken window will cost her roughly $1,000 with the downtown business improvement district reimbursing a percentage. She says the broken window is a small concern in the grand scheme of the challenges plaguing Saskatoon.
But she wants to see some of the concerns highlighted in the survey addressed and prioritized accordingly.
'It's affecting all of the businesses that are trying to contribute to our local economy and build our city up,' she said.
The chamber has written a letter to councillors and Mayor Cynthia Block. He says the city could look at other jurisdictions and explore a municipal grant to help businesses recoup some of its costs and help businesses like Seven Sundays thrive.
'I don't have the ability to change things, but the people that do, they need to do something about it,' Cross said.
