Councillor seeks mandatory registration of bikes to combat theft

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This article was published 12/12/2018 (2487 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Coun. Ross Eadie thinks mandatory registration could deter the theft of bikes and put a dint in the illegal street sale of methamphetamines.

Eadie (Mynarksi) is bringing a motion to Thursday’s council meeting, which would direct the administration to draft amendments to the business bylaw and would compel retailers to input ownership and registration data onto the City of Winnipeg’s online bike registry when a bike is sold.

Eadie said bike thefts are fuelling the illegal sale of meth and anything that can be done to hit drug dealers is worth the effort.

“A hit of meth is selling for $10 and as low as $3,” said Point Douglas activist Sel Burrows, who joined Eadie for a news conference at city hall Wednesday afternoon. “Meth addicts will steal a bike and flip it to a dealer who will give them a hit of meth for it. The dealer then will sell the stolen bike for $80 or $90, depending on the bike.”

Eadie said city hall launched a voluntary online bike registry in April, where bike owners can input their bicycle’s serial number. Police can access that data base if during an investigation they suspect a bike has been stolen.

“The problem with this new system is hardly anyone knows the online registry exists,” Eadie said, adding only about 2,000 bikes have been logged onto the registry.

“If police suspect a bike is stolen now, checking with the online registry isn’t going to help them because chances are it’s not registered,” Eadie said.

There is a cost of $6.60 to input data on the city’s online bike registry. Several bikes can be registered per household and three photos of each bike posted as well. If recovered by police, the stolen bikes will be returned without additional charge. Registration can be done at: www.winnipeg.ca/bikeregistry

The city says upwards of 3,000 bikes are stolen every year. While police recover about 1,000 bikes, less than one-tenth are traced back to their owners and returned.

Burrows said bikes are stolen in areas from around the downtown and then taken to meth dealers in his neighbourhood.

“You see people riding a bike and pulling a second, very nice once, along with them,” Burrows said. “You know the second bike is stolen but if they’re stopped and questioned, they’ll just say it belongs to their brother. The bike’s not registered on the online registry, so the police can’t do anything.”

Burrows said making bike registration compulsory will build up the number of bikes on the registry to point where meth addicts and dealers won’t want to run the risk of getting caught holding a stolen a bike.

Eadie said he believes the registry cost could be lowered if more people used it.

“When you reach a certain level of bikes being registered, the bad guys are going to stop stealing bikes because they know there’ll be a reasonable chance when the police stop them that the bike will be registered and they’ll be charged with possession of stolen goods,” Burrows said. “The fact police can charge them right on the spot with possession of stolen goods will mean they’ll stop stealing bikes.”

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca