Police in North Vancouver say they had to close a portion of Highway 1 yesterday morning to deal with a man acting erratically due to a mental health crisis. North Vancouver RCMP say they were alerted to a man “causing public alarm” Monday morning on the Mosquito Creek trail under an overpass, and officers had to confront his “aggressive” and threatening behaviour. Mounties say they brought in a crisis negotiator and consulted with a psychologist as they talked the man down, apprehending him under the Mental Health Act a few hours after the incident began. Police say the man had a number of “makeshift weapons,” but the highway was reopened shortly after the man was taken to hospital for treatment.
The BC Hotel Association says it’s stepping up its game on eco-friendly practices within the province’s hospitality sector with a pair of partnerships and the adoption of a new sustainability playbook. The association says it has also achieved a “Biosphere” designation, signalling its commitment to environmentally responsible tourism practices. It says the new playbook will offer hotel operators advice on how to operate more efficiently, while reducing waste and cutting down on energy consumption. The hotel association says its partnership with the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance will give it access to research and other tools to foster best practices for a more environmentally friendly hospitality sector.
The BC General Employees’ Union says hundreds of workers from the embattled social housing operator Atira Women’s Resource Society have joined the union. The BCGEU says more than 500 employees from Atira officially joined after organizing across nearly three dozen job sites, calling it a “significant win” after a large majority voted in favour of joining. The union says Atira employees can now collectively work to deal with the organization’s working and living conditions, staffing issues and other safety concerns. Atira CEO Janice Abbott stepped down this month after a scathing audit of BC Housing found that her husband, Shayne Ramsay, then the Crown corporation’s CEO, had violated conflict-of-interest rules by steering funding to his wife’s organization.
The BC Housing Ministry says it’s buying a hotel in Courtenay to accommodate people set to be displaced when a lease expires on another hotel in the city at the end of June. BC Housing says it had been leasing a Travelodge in the city since the spring of 2020, where people facing homelessness were given a place to stay and self-isolate during the pandemic. The agency says the lease is up at the end of June, and efforts to buy the Travelodge were unsuccessful. The province says it’s buying a Super 8 hotel to house people currently at the Travelodge, and the 67-unit facility will be operated by the Comox Valley Transition Society, which has overseen the Travelodge since it was first leased three years ago.
The City of Penticton says it’s working on a plan to address safety issues for children walking to school with the launch of a new pilot project. The city says the Safe Routes to School initiative involves partnering with two local elementary schools to come up with safer routes by identifying traffic issues. The project, the city says, will involve canvassing the school community while engaging police and city staff to identify traffic and infrastructure issues and ways in which they can be improved. Kristen Dixon with the city says improvements could include traffic calming measures and infrastructure such as new crosswalks or sidewalks.
Police in Saanich say they’re looking for a suspect who allegedly stole a large wheel of cheese from a grocery store back in April. In a tongue-in-cheek post on Facebook, Greater Victoria Crime Stoppers says the Saanich police were sad the suspect didn’t invite them to a cheese party he was “clearly hosting” after stealing a 600-dollar wheel of gouda. The post says if anyone knows the “charcuterie lover” who stole the cheese, they can report him anonymously to Crime Stoppers. The social media post says successful tips can include a cash reward that can buy “a whole lot of cheese.”