All letters to the editor published by KelownaNow reflect only the opinions of the readers who submit them, and not necessarily those of KelownaNow or its staff. Letters can be submitted to news@kelownanow.com

I am writing this to our Mayor Tom Dyas and all city council and also to our provincial government representatives as the City continues to tell its citizens that they are helpless to do anything about the crime, drugs and vagrancy plaguing our city. 

Today, a local business owner who suffered a break-in (the latest in a series of recent ones) referred to the situation as "retail apocalypse". It is a fitting description of what is happening in Kelowna.

Mayor and council; how can you continue to ignore the homeless camped along every part of Hwy 97 as you drive from downtown to the airport? The corner and stretch at Leathead and Hwy 97 in particular the building between the Park Inn Radisson and Days Inn (I believe they call it Heath House). The drugged out people camping in business doorways downtown in the middle of the afternoon. The fires, the feces, the drug paraphernalia littering the streets?

All we hear from you is how great the new arts centre on the waterfront will be. How wonderful it was to host the CCMAs. How great it will be to welcome the country to the Memorial Cup. We never hear how crappy it has become to be a business owner or resident in the last few years as this problem has just exploded despite you trying to tell us "crime is down." Do you come to work at city hall with blinders on?

Photo Credit: KelownaNowFile Photo

Here's my idea. Take one of these drug injection sites or tiny house camps or just a group of the passed out drug addicts from downtown or Rutland and relocate them to Pandosy and Lower Mission. Set up their camping at Gyro or Rotary Beach, convert a City owned park into tiny homes on a lot in the center of Lower Mission and let's see how long it takes for this garbage to end. It is a sincere and honest question. You've set up these drug houses and camps in every corner of the city except the corners where the wealthy and affluent live. It is so obvious.

Enough passing the buck. Enough trying to convince us all is well. Enough telling us it's not as bad as we think it is. It was interesting the during CCMA week there were fewer homeless and druggies downtown. I am convinced you moved them to other parts of the city to put on a good show for the visitors. If you could do it that week, surely we can find a permanent way to clean up this problem.

We've always had drugs and homelessness in Kelowna but the changes in laws, political correctness, drug policies and the general attitude of politicians that we should accept the "new normal" is what has changed. When you decriminalize hard drugs, soften criminal laws, have a catch and release judicial system this is the result.

The City of Portland warned British Columbia that this is what would happen. They experienced all of this first hand. It almost destroyed their city. They have now reversed all of these terrible decisions, started enforcing laws, getting addicts into treatment instead of feeding them free drugs, and just having a sense of law and order again and the City of Portland is coming back to life. Let's use them as an example and start to turn this around now. 

No more committees, no more studies, no more tiny homes, no more free drugs. Enough is enough. 

If the City is truly powerless, I've copied our provincial representatives, the premier and attorney general. Surely they have some authority to reverse the laws they put into place that started this downfall.

I've also copied our local media. Feel free (I hope you do) publish this as a letter to the editor. We need to start speaking out loudly so our city and provincial representatives start to hear us regular people who make Kelowna home and are sick and tired of seeing it be taken over by drugs, criminals and soft laws and lack of enforcement.

I am happy to see the local media start to tell these business owner's stories of break ins and crime. It is hard to ignore the truth of what is actually happening in this city when you see it all around us. 

With sincerity and respect,

Peter Dixon
Long Time Kelowna Resident