The Town of Banff will double the amount of additional RCMP officers brought into the community on New Year’s Eve to improve public safety in the tourist town.
In addition to the full detachment being on duty that night, Banff will have another 20 officers from around the province on patrol – at a cost of $6,400 for the additional 10 personnel.
Sgt. Stan Andronyk requested the additional manpower from council at a meeting Tuesday (Oct. 14), saying after seeing last year’s celebration at Caribou Corner he feels more officers are needed to ensure public safety.
“I think we have been lucky, to be perfectly frank,” said Andronyk regarding past celebrations. “There are a lot of incidents we were not able to address, so we are trying to manage the event better and proactively do more enforcement before.
“We did not see an injury last year, but saw some things that were scary and we are fortunate.”
He estimated 1,000 or more people congregated on Banff Avenue for fireworks at midnight.
In a letter to council, Andronyk noted open liquor and actions that put the crowd at risk that officers were not able to properly deal with.
“I saw bottles flying in the crowd and fireworks were being shot off as well,” he wrote. “Many of these fireworks malfunctioned and dropped immediately back into the crowd while still burning. A number of RCMP members tried to enter the crowd to find people who were putting others at risk, but had no chance of locating the culprits and put themselves in danger.
“There was a large amount of open liquor being transported by people on Banff Avenue and many people thought they were allowed to do so because it was New Year’s Eve. Members were not able to effectively enforce provincial liquor statutes and instead were disposing of open liquor and moving people on.”
It was suggested fireworks could be moved to 10 p.m., but council approved extra manpower instead.
Councillor Stavros Karlos said changing the time of the fireworks wouldn’t necessarily translate into less people, or public safety risk, at midnight.
“Downtown on New Year’s people come out and they come from all over town and they come to do a countdown in that square,” he said. “That has happened with or without fireworks.”
Council also approved an official street closure for the 100 to 300 blocks of Banff Avenue from 11:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
