‘We feel completely abandoned’: downtown restaurateur fed up with repeated property crimes

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This article was published 20/07/2023 (779 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg restaurant owner is frustrated and demanding more action to prevent crime, after his business was broken into three times in less than 18 months.

Alfonso Maury said the burglaries at Corrientes Argentine Pizzeria, located at 137 Bannatyne Ave. in the Exchange District, reflect a surge in property crimes against restaurants across the city.

“We feel completely abandoned. This is happening almost every day in a lot of businesses around downtown,” he said Thursday. “The feeling today is, when is it going to happen to me again?

“I’m waking up and waiting for my phone to ring to see if it happened again. It’s a very bad feeling.”

The latest break-in happened Tuesday, when someone smashed a window, climbed in and stole alcohol, said Maury.

It mirrored incidents in February 2022, when liquor was taken, and April 2023, when tablet computers were stolen, he said.

All three happened during the 3 a.m. hour, said Maury, who was not aware of any arrests.

A Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman confirmed no one had been arrested in the latest incident.

Maury was at a loss over what more he could do to protect his business and its customers and staff. He already had an alarm system and surveillance cameras.

After an earlier break-in, police suggested he leave the lights on overnight.

Maury cannot afford to install polycarbonate windows that are harder to break. He said he was recently given a quote of $5,000 per window.

Insurance is another issue. Maury and other victims have paid out of pocket for repairs and losses due to the high price of deductibles.

Maury doesn’t believe crime and related issues are being tackled sufficiently. It’s up to decision-makers, such as governments, to come up with solutions, he said.

He noted that while he’s not an expert on crime matters, as a start he would welcome more police or security patrols, or a camera network that has 24-7 monitoring to help identify and locate suspects.

Earlier this month, the province pledged $10 million over two years for an additional 24 police officers, 75 cameras and a new downtown community safety office.

Members of the Manitoba Restaurant and Foodservices Association have reported a spike in property crimes and thefts, said executive director and CEO Shaun Jeffrey.

The severity of crimes is worsening, he said.

“It’s a pretty disturbing trend,” said Jeffrey. “It’s not a new thing. We’ve had crime issues in this city forever, and it’s not getting any better.”

In June, a server at an Olive Garden restaurant on Reenders Drive was stabbed in the neck by a customer.

The MRFA is sending a letter to Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen to highlight concerns raised by members at a recent meeting.

Goertzen is willing to meet with the association, his spokesman said.

Jeffrey said a multi-faceted plan is needed to combat the problem. It should include more supports for social issues, which are root causes of crime, and it should explore whether there are approaches Manitoba hasn’t tried, he said.

Kate Kehler, executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, pointed to a recent study by Campaign 2000 — a coalition of children’s aid societies, faith organizations, community agencies, health organizations, school boards, labour organizations and people with lived experience of poverty — that found Manitoba has the highest child and family poverty rate in Canada.

Kehler said an approach that prioritizes policing and incarceration doesn’t work.

“We’ve gone down this road. The idea that somehow we’ve been soft on crime, and we’re in this situation because of it, is not true,” she said.

In response to a rash of break-ins last year, Ravi Ramberran, who owns the Four Crowns hotel, restaurant and bar, and other business owners on McPhillips Street banded together to discuss solutions.

Ramberran spent thousands to upgrade security, including hiring guards from a private company. Most small businesses cannot afford to do that, he said.

“We’re very tired of spending our profits and an absurd amount of money on having to protect ourselves,” he said. “We need our politicians to step up and say, ‘Enough is enough.’”

When it comes to enforcement, police are already swamped with serious crimes, said Ramberran. He isn’t satisfied with the punishments handed to people convicted of property crimes.

A total of 6,601 break-and-enters were reported to the WPS in 2022, a year-to-year increase of almost 25 per cent, according to an annual report.

Most weren’t solved. The clearance rate was 13 per cent, the report stated.

About two-thirds affected commercial properties.

Maury’s restaurant is in Point Douglas Coun. Vivian Santos’s ward. She said the city needs a “socially balanced” budget.

“The continuous cycle of poverty and homelessness has been top of mind for my office,” she told the Free Press in an email. “Longer-term solutions, like more funding into housing-first models with culturally appropriate wraparound supports should be made a top priority for every level of government.”

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Colin Fast, a spokesman for Mayor Scott Gillingham, assured Winnipeggers safety is a priority, while citing a number of downtown-specific measures.

Fast said the city provides funding for the Downtown Community Safety Partnership, is launching a new safety officer program with an initial focus on Winnipeg Transit, and is supporting residential and commercial developments.

“Ultimately, we know the key to a more vibrant downtown with less opportunistic property crime is to have more people living, working and visiting in the area at all hours,” he wrote in an email.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @chriskitching

Chris Kitching
Reporter

Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.

Every piece of reporting Chris produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.