Impacts 2023 Survey Results

Section One: About Respondents

We received 129 survey responses from various areas across the city. It's important to note that areas with higher criminality and social disruptions tend to have more respondents. Downtown Kamloops and North Kamloops had the highest respondents followed by Aberdeen and Valleyview, representing an expansion in areas of respondents from last year.

We saw a broad cross section of business types identifying they had experienced impacts in the past year. Dominant to these appear to be forward or public facing businesses, which is reasonable as they provide direct access to some services such as bathrooms, food, or essentials. In this case, we see the dominant impacted responses came from Retail, Professional services, Restaurants, Arts facilities, and Health Services.

While most businesses in Canada are known to fail within ten years, Kamloops seems to be somewhat bucking that trends. This is shown in respondents indicating the length of time businesses. It should also be noted that many second and third generation businesses exist in the Downtown and North Shore cores. Data indicated that 76% of total respondents have been in business over 5 years, and 60% of those in business over 10 years.  

90% of survey respondents indicated that impacts overall to their businesses from crime and social disruptions increased or significantly increased over the prior year.

80% of survey respondents indicated that impacts to staff safety from crime and social disruptions increased or significantly increased over the prior year.

86% of survey respondents indicated that impacts to customers perception of safety from crime and social disruptions increased or significantly increased over the prior year.

78% of survey respondents indicated that customer complaints regarding crime and social disruptions increased or significantly increased over the prior year.

The Top Ten Issues Experienced list was multi-select, so respondents could choose multiple issues that they felt impacted them.

Regarding Graffiti – the clean team have been working on this in the downtown and North Shore. In the last 6 months, we have removed well over 500 individual tags and graffiti works.

Theft remains high on our list of issues with a perceived lack of criminal accountability linked to shoplifting and what we have heard referred to as “minor crimes” we are however aware that in two examples from this year, one business has security which recovers about 500.00 per day, while they still are unable to recover an additional 500.00 per day to shoplifting, the total loses for this business is approximately 180,000.00 per year. Another national chain store has reported in the first 7 months of this year, they lost approximately 150,000.00 in merchandise to shoplifters, this despite security and staff efforts. As a result the lack of accountability in the criminal justice system remains a high priority for many of us.

Drug Dealing and the resulting drug use are both indicated in the top 10 issues. Some studies are showing that decriminalization and open use has had the opposite effects from those presented by the provincial government in their decriminalization pilot project. Municipalities across the province are starting to pass bylaws in an attempt to limit the impacts, however, it is widely anticipated that these bylaws will face legal challenges.

The remaining impacts are ones we are all familiar with. The BIAs are responding to some of these issues, the larger legal aspects of impacts will need to be addressed by our response agencies. 

Losses related to criminality and social issues have a direct negative impact to the businesses bottom line. In times of prosperity these costs can be better absorbed due to high cashflow environments. However, losses combined with challenging economic influences such as pandemic recovery, increased property taxes, commercial income taxation, increased health taxes, and inflationary pressures for all consumables become operationally unsustainable for businesses. The reported costs to business directly related to criminality and social disruptions remains significant at $752,746.00 in the last year

Section Three - Business Response Actions and Costs

Business, by its very nature, is used to problem solving and stepping into action when the situation requires it. This survey demonstrates this concept. Businesses continued to adapt operations and take actions to protect their businesses and assets. 

74% or respondents have changed their approach to security, in the past year. In many cases these changes have a lower price tag, but, yield stronger security. In other circumstances, as we see on the next graphic, cost can be significant. Actions taken include security cameras, lock changes, staff training on a variety of topics, including fraud prevention and cash handling, suspect identification, and security procedures. Lighting upgrades is another top action, ensuring that parking areas and yards are lit up to dissuade criminality and promote safety. The lowest adaption is Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Assessments and Awareness. Howie is working with his CAP team and Community Policing to define a CPTED program that CAP can support and deliver. 

The majority of respondents indicated that they had spent under 5,000.00 on security changes. We do see some significant costs associated with these actions for the remaining cost groupings, with 17 respondents spending over 12 thousand dollars , 5 spending 30 thousand, 1 spending 70,000. and of the two remaining, one spent 240,000 and the other spent 700,000 on fencing and gate systems.

The average spend within the base group is 2,792.00. The good news is that from January 1 2023 onward, these business owners can apply for a provincial grant. (see section 5)

Section Four - Response Agency Assessments

Many respondents do not call CSOs for service. Of those that do call the frequency is monthly, followed by weekly.

Overall, the brand value for CSOs continues to fall, with a Net Promoter Score of -57, a drop from last year's score of -54.

The top reasons cited for rating CSOs at this level are Slow or Delayed Response (18) and Lack of Action or Follow up (12). It should be noted that seven respondents indicated that CSOs did a good job when responding.

In contrast to CSOs, RCMP are often called for service, with 67% of respondents indicating that they had called for service in the prior year. Of those, most were frequent or monthly calls for service.

Overall, the brand value for the RCMP has risen slightly year over year from – 43 in 2022 to -40 in 2023.

When asked why RCMP were rated this way, the top three issues cited were: legal or systemic issues which prevent RCMP from resolving the situation, a lack of action or response due to non-emergent nature of calls, and finally, apathy or unprofessionalism, mostly centered around lack of communication or follow up.



It should be noted that several respondents noted RCMP are performing at a higher service level in the past year.

NPS is a reputation strength tool used by organizations to understand the strength of their “brand”. Brand is defined as “how an entity is seen by their community”. The scale is 0-6 who are detractors (often complainers) 7-8 who are neutrals, (not satisfied, but not happy enough to strongly endorse), 9 and 10 are endorsers, (people who feel strongly that entity is worthy of references or recommendation). A positive NPS means your brand value is building in community, a negative means your brand value is decreasing.

Section Five - Solutions

CAP Team

Downtown Kamloops and the NSBIA have teamed up in a redevelopment of the CAP (Customer Care and Patrol) Team. The mandate of which has expanded beyond the traditional tourism focus to include street level safety and Crime Prevention supports for the CSO and RCMP teams. CAP team members now patrol both the North Shore and Downtown cores.

·Typically were young adults and students looking for work experience, making minimum wage.

·Now looking for specific skills and training that lend themselves to more of a community safety lens. Training in:

-First Aid

-Mental Health First Aid

-De-escalation and mitigation of social disruption.

·Already receive drug awareness training and detailed note taking from the RCMP.

·Active, efficient communication with Outreach, Community Services and RCMP.

·Starting wage is about to move above $20/hr. We’re finalizing the funding agreement through the City.

·Have asked Community Services to refer any CSO applicants that may need a little more experience before taking that step to us. And in turn we let our CAP Team members know about opportunities with Community Services.

·As well having CAP assist Community Services in CPTED follow up with business, vehicle theft audits, ride alongs

Street Outreach

George Murphy and the Street Advocate Outreach position introduced last year has arguably been the most effective initiative in mitigating and de-escalating social disruption in the downtown core.

However George’s funding with Reaching Home ends this coming spring.

We need George, we need more George’s throughout Kamloops.

The KCBIA, NSBIA and the City will be meeting to discuss extension and expansion street advocacy. 

Kamloops Clean Team

The Kamloops Clean Team is just over a year old, with funding for this initiative coming from the City, Province and BIAs. The goal of the program is to provide employment as a foundation for health outcomes to people who are in housing or care within our community, to build a stronger relationship between those who wish to regain their lives, and who choose to give back.

As of October 31 this year we have gathered:

Garbage 13,380 lbs

Harm Prev.         5,442 Units

Shopping Carts   141 Units

Carboard 1,370 Boxes

CSO Calls  85 Calls

Tags Removed   574 Tags

It should be noted last week, the clean team removed over 1200 tags which were painted in our commercial zones in only 3 weeks. It’s an ongoing battle to keep pace with those who would diminish your neighbourhoods, which is why funding of these programs and their ongoing operation is so critical.

Provincial Grant

BIA BC and the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation spent nine months last year refining the Securing Small Business Rebate program , which will be administered by the BC Chamber of Commerce. The program opens November 22nd and allows business owners to apply for up to 2,000 to cover the costs associated with Theft or Vandalism, retroactively to January 2023, and also to apply for up to 1,000 dollars toward preventative measures such as locks, cameras and gates, etc. Application criteria will include: pictures of the damage, RCMP or Police force file numbers, receipts for payments.