Nancy O’s Owner Eoin Foley says he’s grateful the restaurant didn’t burn down last week.
Through email, Foley shared photos from the downtown restaurant last week, showing a pile of ash and a burn mark outside of the back door, as well as a smaller pile of ash at the front door.
“For me, personally, it’s been dozens over the years, but just two last week,” Foley said in an interview with My PG Now.
“I personally had to grab a bucket of water and put out some smoldering debris just two days after the CrossRoads fire.”
The CrossRoads Brewing downtown location was the victim of a an arson on September 5th, and on September 29th, the Nechako Bottle Depot burned down as well.
Foley adds many buildings he’s seen throughout the downtown have burn marks as well.
“It’s a surprise that we don’t see even more fires than we already do.”
Foley says a local state of emergency would have to send a message to higher levels of government that this is a real emergency.
“They need to treat it as such, because they haven’t,” he said.
“Even the provincial government, they declared a public health emergency in 2017, and they changed the course on that at all, that was eight years ago, and we’re worse off than we were back then.”
Foley said actions and policies have been an inappropriate response to what is an urgent crisis.
“They’ve been putting together piecemeal policies and half measures for so long, and waiting to see if this works, or if this works,” he said.
“What we need is a transformational change in our systems, and we’re not seeing that.”
Foley said he recognizes locally the City doesn’t have the resources mandate to address some parts of the issue, such as
“We’re talking about things like overnight security, so much of this bad behaviour and fires happen in the middle of the night when there’s very few people around in the downtown area to protect our businesses, to call the police or the fire department as needed,” he said.
“A local state of emergency can give a few extra powers, like implementing a curfew in those hours of the night, so anybody’s that’s skulking around, that’s up to no good can be detained for the evening and without having to actually commit a crime. I’m talking about people that are clearly up to no good, and have likely had a ton of police interactions already.”
#####
Today (Tuesday), Prince George City Council sent out the following open letter to residents:
Public safety is the most urgent challenge facing our City. The recent fires and ongoing issues in our downtown have made many residents feel unsafe. This is a difficult time for the community, and a time when Council is particularly grateful for the unwavering service provided by our frontline workers, including our colleagues and friends in Bylaw Services, the RCMP, and Prince George Fire Rescue.
As your mayor and council, we have considered every tool available to us to address safety concerns downtown and have implemented those which are known to be effective, including funding for CCTV, increasing funding for Bylaw and RCMP, and cooperating with the Province to build more housing for people living on the streets.
On paper, things are improving. In 2024, the Crime Severity Index, which measures the frequency and severity of reported crime, dropped to the lowest level since 2018.
But downtown remains in crisis. We have heard calls for Council to take action. We want to see action too. The frustrating reality is that municipal government does not have the authority to address the fundamental problems in the mental health and criminal justice systems which allow widespread street disorder to persist. But we know who does.
Council fully supports recent calls to the Federal government to strengthen our criminal justice system: amendments to the bail provisions that lead to “catch and release”, stiffer penalties for repeat offenders, and longer sentences for people who commit violent crimes. We also support calls to the Province to hire more Crown Counsel and expand services to provide custodial care for individuals committing crimes due to untreated mental illness or acquired brain injury. Every one of these steps is outside the authority of municipal government, but Council has been advocating fiercely to attract Provincial and Federal attention and resources to Prince George.
We are seeing results: most recently, following persistent advocacy from Council, the Province announced that Prince George will be home to one of only two new involuntary care facilities in B.C. The Province has also constructed more than 555 units of affordable and supportive housing in the city since 2022, as well as a 42-bed transitional housing facility which was purpose-built to get people off the street while they wait for permanent housing to become available. This is a tangible step towards addressing downtown disorder.
But it’s not enough.
Advocating for the tools we need
Council hopes to host a community meeting to discuss solutions to the challenges we face as a city. We have asked Ministers from the Provincial government to attend and we are awaiting their response. This will be an opportunity for them to share the steps they are taking to address the ongoing issues around public safety.
More importantly, it will be an opportunity for them to listen to the people of Prince George.
Along with maintaining strong working partnerships with all other levels of government and our continued focus on advocacy is making sure our community also feel like they can make their voices count.
This is why part of our advocacy push will be to give residents the opportunity to sign a petition to the Attorney General of Canada advocating for changes to bail reform. With enough signatures and the support of a member of Parliament, this petition will be presented to the House of Commons. In cooperation with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, our goal is to raise further awareness that the failings in the Criminal Code have created massive problems in cities and towns across the country.
A number of members of Council also plan to attend the Safe Streets rally planned for October 16 at the CN Centre. We look forward to listening to residents and standing together as a community.
What about declaring a state of emergency?
We heard calls for Council to declare a state of local emergency, and we looked into it. The clear advice we received is that provincial emergency and disaster legislation limits this tool to respond to limited-duration events, like earthquakes, mass flooding and narrowly defined terrorist and security threats. It’s not something Council can legally use to respond to ongoing disorder downtown.
Council is responsible for a wide range of services in Prince George, from playground maintenance to major water infrastructure, and everything between. But public safety remains at the very top of our agenda. We are listening. We are acting. And we are committed to fighting for the safe community that Prince George deserves.
Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
Send us a news tip by emailing [email protected].
