RCMP to send uniformed officers almost daily to Wreck Beach this summer | Daily Xtra
dailyxtra.com/vancouver/news/rcmp-send-unifor...
dailyxtra.comPosted May 12, 2014, 4:33 PM UTC
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dailyxtra.comYeah, let's send RCMP to Wreck Beach, and not worry about actual crimes, terrible drivers, etc etc... sigh
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The UBC branch is RCMP and not Vancouver city police. They will not be following the same "lax" drug laws that the Vancouver city police stated they plan to work on. I find the UBC detachment has too much time on their hands and spends a disproportional amount of time at wreck beach. In the summer you often see 4 - 6 officers down there walking in groups and hiding in bushes. Its like some little game they play because they have nothing better to do.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate their services when they are needed. Generally wreck beach is pretty good at self policing and calling for help if someone is majorly misbehaving/ in need of help. I would be much happier if the cops just set up a single officer booth at the top of the stairs to show a basic presence and to be called for assistance in case of incidents. Having them down on the beach destroys the naturalist vibe, not only in the lax nature surrounding substances but in the natural elements of the beach. It is one of the few places in Vancouver where you don't see too many other elements of human civilization. No buildings, no clear cuts, just a bunch nudists. When you get a cop with a gun and a full uniform down there is ruins it. Vancouver has enough "normal" beaches including the ones with cops ripping down the beaches on atvs. How enjoyable is that?
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Ah yes, the hide in the bushes with ATVs game. A classic.
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Those bushes aren't real. Their holograms. Batcave style.
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You realize there already are specific departments for those kinds of things right? There's also a department that patrols the parks and beaches. They are simply stepping up presence at that specific beach.
It's similar to asking a traffic cop, "Don't you have murderers and rapists to catch?" when you get pulled over. Not their assignment, nor their department. If you worked office administration your wouldn't be asked to pressure wash the building's compactor area.
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You're (I think) intentionally misrepresenting what u/J_Golbez said. He isn't saying that beach patrol should be re-tasked to all things murderous and stabby, he's saying that putting resources on things like beach patrol - to combat, for the most part, morality and nanny state 'crime' - is a conscious decision to not allocate those resources to other, more objectively serious crime. We can only fund a finite number of officers and they can only be allocated to so many things.
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The RCMP detachment doesn't have that many serious crimes in the first place. Putting more constables into a department that does not need them is a greater waste of resources, especially at the UBC detachment which sees less police incidents in the summer due to a severely reduced student population and more incidents at wreck beach due to the greater traffic there during the summer.
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The RCMP detachment doesn't have that many serious crimes in the first place.
so fucking fire their asses and let them be productive, contributing members of society.
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Good point.
Then it is a question of allocation, isn't it? I know Transit Cops are an entirely different thing, but you can see there is a lot of waste there when they spend 90% of their time checking for fares. Too bad some of them couldn't be hired by the Vancouver PD to do more useful work.
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Fare checking is a good way to catch people who have warrants. Unsurprisingly people who don't follow the rules when it comes to crime tend not to follow the rules when it comes to paying for transit. So it's a useful function to have the transit police checking fares.
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What do transit police and the VPD have to do with this article?
To my knowledge transit officers also help VPD with tracking and apprehending criminals who use the transit system as an escape (skytrain). Also, transit police are funded and designed specifically to be a transit authority.
Again, it comes down to it not being their job. Would you want a transit cop investigating drug crime complete with undercover work and potential homicide investigation?
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I think you still are misunderstanding people...
The money spent to pay transit cops or cops patrolling the beach could be better spent on, for example, cops patrolling the downtown east side, police dealing with gang violence, or other areas of police work/other departments.
Like the guy above said "it is a question of allocation".
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because ubc is a hotbed of criminal activity in the summer?
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Citation needed
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“There’s certainly some different tolerance levels down there,” Grainger says. “The way we want to approach it this year is to reduce those tolerances. Our overall objective is to make sure everyone is safe and secure.”
I don't like the sound of that.. as someone who doesn't drink or do drugs, but who enjoys the atmosphere of Wreck Beach, I hope the police presence won't become too heavy-handed this summer.
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I wish they were required to actually tell us what they actually want to do, instead of "we want to reduce tolerance" which on it's own sounds stupid in a place that is generally pretty peaceful from what I've heard.
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This should give you a good idea:
Grainger says the RCMP will not go after individual drinkers, unless they are causing trouble.
“If a family wants to come down, or a group of people want to come down and have a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer and continue to behave to the point of not causing harm to themselves or other people, then we can manage that,” he says. “As long as they aren’t blatantly showing it off to the public sphere.”
I read that as bring your own booze, keep it discrete, and don't make an ass of yourself and you will be ok. Try to sell liquor or drugs and you will have a problem.
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Awesome. I hope it stays that way then. Thank you.
Keeping the peace and modifying tolerance levels are different things IMO and the RCMP should word things better than that.
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I've seen many people who have been sober (1-2 drinks in) and relatively discrete get tickets down there after being searched.
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That was previous years. It sounds like, from the article, that they are not really going to care about that sort of thing starting this year. Obviously though, we'll have to wait and see exactly how it plays out in the end.
In past years I have had my beer dumped out, but have never been ticketed myself.
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That sounds reasonable.
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They will just make you pour it out like every other beach or park at worst it would be a fine
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I'll make sure I have that comment on standby for when I go down there...
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I've had plenty of interactions with VPD at the beach and the officers themselves have always been super pleasant and not at all heavy handed. The quads they ride are usually a bigger nuisance than anything else.
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Lies, drinking in public is still a crime and the rcmp are required to respond to all crimes they see, you cant ask them to turn a blind eye to crimes
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Exactly, on the face of it, it seems like a bland, innocuous comment. I feel almost stupid complaining about it, which is probably the idea when phrasing things like that in PR.
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Considering that they are the ones who have been tolerant so far it's pretty easy to tell what they are planning to do.
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I need to be Kept Safe and Secure from dangerous hippies and their cold, evil beers.
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I say they should only get water guns to spray at people doing the wrong thing
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I used to be a park ranger down there. Generally people were well behaved, but you would get some drunk clowns here and there that spoiled it for everyone. I think the biggest issue is that they have people down there selling weed, beer and misc drugs and making huge amounts of profit. If you are discreet with you liquor, I don't think they are going to hassle you. Just don't have open cans of beer laying around. And if there is no cause for search, you do not have to open your cooler, they will ask you, just politely decline even if they threaten to stay there all day. It's better than having 30$ of beer dumped out.
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I'm not sure if it's my subconscious or dyslexia, but everytime I see "uniformed police" I read it as "un-informed police".
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I also read united as "untied".
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and hafilax as halifax
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Just landed in Halifax from Vancouver and read this as 'uninformed'. If I'd flown United my brain would have exploded
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never fly untied
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Haha!
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What if anything justifies this sort of police presence - especially while 290 murders in Vancouver over the past 12 years have gone unsolved? It seems to me the police could really better prioritize their activities.
To be fair, UBC is not part of Vancouver. They have their own police (RCMP detachment), and there has only been one murder on UBC grounds in the last 12 years (Wendy Ladner-Beaudry).
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It's police speak for "At least try and pretend you're not drinking and we'll play along." Every time I've gone to wreck the only people that get bothered by the cops are the ones that are blatantly drinking/smoking and not trying to hide it, which leaves the cops no choice but to ticket them because that's their job.
I've always viewed the cops on wreck as an mildly inconvenient moderating factor. Wreck is getting increasingly popular and you are seeing lot of people there that don't get that wreck is a place to be chill, not to party hard (I'm looking at you, douchebag with the boombox, board shorts, and bottles of corona). Yes it sucks having to put my beer down for five minutes until they walk past, but I'd rather put up with that than have it turn into a boozed up Jericho.
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I've always viewed the cops on wreck as an mildly inconvenient moderating factor. Wreck is getting increasingly popular and you are seeing lot of people there that don't get that wreck is a place to be chill, not to party hard (I'm looking at you, douchebag with the boombox, board shorts, and bottles of corona). Yes it sucks having to put my beer down for five minutes until they walk past, but I'd rather put up with that than have it turn into a boozed up Jericho.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Although, maybe the cops aren't the best way to deal with this.
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Are you telling me there's a beach I can go to where I won't have to put up with that crap? I can just suit there quietly and read a book, catch a little sun, and have a beer in peace? I might actually finally go to Wreck.
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This is a very good point. Wreck is increasingly turning into this douched out place....specially on Canada day. I don't think having uniformed cops is necessarily the way to deal with this though, but I would like to see a change to try to prevent this.
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Which officers won the equivalent of the job lottery there?
Yeah, because what cop wouldn't want to wear full police gear in the sun in 20+ degree weather all day, while surrounded by naked middle-aged people?
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“If a family wants to come down, or a group of people want to come down and have a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer and continue to behave to the point of not causing harm to themselves or other people, then we can manage that,” he says.
Wow what a golden quote. Hey asshole, people who aren't causing harm to themselves or others were managing just fine without you!
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The golden part is the fact that they're cracking down for the sake of families and the children...
I didn't think concern for children would come into play or be a viable excuse to crack down on anything at a nude beach.
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Because God forbid if a child sees nudity!
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I've seen families with kids down there a few times...
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But can you be certain? I mean, how do you KNOW you're not causing harm to yourself or others if an authority figure isn't going to confirm this for you?
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This is ridiculous.
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The Province has tweeted:
@theprovince 35m Wreck Beach goes the full Mountie: RCMP to erect tent at famous nude enclave this summer
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Not sure if innuendo or not..
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The never ending battle. Hopefully there will be a few more nude sit ins just staring at the cops. They should set up their booth at the top of the stairs. That way it shows a presence but doesn't subtract from the naturalism. Maybe the cops will get new beach friendly uniforms?
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Slight pet peeve - please use the term naturist/naturism not naturalist/naturalism when referring to nudity in natural areas. I work PT/volunteer as a park naturalist and there are some fun moments when people mistake one for the other.
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Actually I was referring to both. Not that wreck beach is untouched by human hands at all (I think it mostly exists because of human landscaping), but I enjoy wreck beach for the combination of naturism and naturalism. Aside form the horrendous new toilets they put in and stupid cigarette butt collectors it was a relatively natural beach minus all of the people. I would really like to see the washroom at least clad in wood and the cigarette butt things changed to fit the landscape to reflect a lack of directly identifiable human impacts. It's very calming for me not to see any buildings or streets while still being so easy access to from Vancouver.
EDIT: Naturalism doesn't mean what I thought it meant. Although I find this kind of unfair, maybe I can use my new found knowledge for the greater good. I propose using Naturalistic observation as an empirical method of study by which the researcher introduces no outside stimulus, instead witnessing behaviour as it naturally occurs in the environment. (The cops can observe from the top of the stairs!)
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I don't think naturalism means what you think it does then....
Naturalism (philosophy) is any of several philosophical stances wherein all phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural are either false or not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism
Try using "natural area" or "nature" instead, if you're just referring to the environment.
I totally support it being a natural area etc. and I'm just nitpicking vocabulary choice.... agree with your post :)
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Nope! Definitely doesn't mean what I thought it meant. On the plus side, wow there are a lot of related kinds/terms.
Thanks!
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Where is this pressure to "clean up" wreck each coming from?
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Crime is skyrocketing in Surrey where they are begging for more RCMP yet they decide to up enforcement at Wreck beach.........
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Well its not like the RCMP have a budget for the province and divide it up each place gets its own budget.
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Unfortunately, the RCMP doesn't decide where their members are sourced to, only the municipalities that contracts them out make that decision. But yes, as a Surreyite, I agree, the city needs more Mounties...
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Say goodbye to fun
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Seriously, who cares if a handful of downtown patios can be open past midnight or some other bollocks when we have meddling cops trying to justify their existence by patrolling wreck beach. No fun city.
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Are they going to be in police uniform or in official wreck beach uniform?
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Maybe just their required equipment - duty belts and vests only.
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Hot
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Careful with that peashooter Dave...and holy shit Glen, how do you even get that fucking thing into a uniform?
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What is it with the prohibition-era attitude towards alcohol? I don't get it.
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In the polices defence lets look what is the likely cause to this. Alana Thomson was charged with selling alcoholic 'freezies' at Wreck Beach. This charge was triggered by a compliant, possible from the self-proclaimed leadership. When this happened the question of why Thomson was charged and others doing the same thing were not was asked. From the sounds of it her biggest crime was she wasn't fully nude, but only topless. If it is true that the severity of her crime was based not on public endangerment but level of nudity its no wonder the RCMP feel that this group has no credibility to self police themselves and they have to step in themselves.
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Upvote for rational thought.
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This probably has more to do with officers wanting to hang out at a nudie beach than anything.
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Unlikely, first of all cops don't just decide what crimes to investigate on a whim. Second, it's hardly a pleasant and chilled out experience for them to walk around a beach on a sunny day in full uniform while getting death stares and curses from legions of aging nudists and stoners.
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and young nudists and stoners. I really enjoy about wreck that it's multi generational.
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Indeed, I was just referring to certain demographics that are more vocal than others.
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This will definitely help Vancouver's world wide reputation as "No fun city".
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I'd like to point out that our world wide reputation is usually 'best city in North America.' The no fun thing tends to be a local sentiment...
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Lol, you'd be lucky if they heard of it, never mind can find it on a map. City of navelgazers.
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Best City? Holy shit you are smug!
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Well, I've lived in the big 3, and have done quite a bit of travelling. Van is the best city to me. :)
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Im glad you feel that way. But stating that the world sees us as the best city is very arrogant.
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RCMP to send uniformed officers almost daily to Wreck Beach, a department wide competition is being held to see which officers get to go. Officer Grainger says that a uniform change is being considered. "The tan lines from wearing only parade boots and a duty belt would be unacceptable to the members and their families. We are considering allowing the officers to wear duty sandals instead of the boots." When asked about the possibility of sun burns resulting from a daily patrol Officer Grainger replied that the RCMP would be issuing sunblock to the beach patrol officers.
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Gee, this wouldn't have anything with the proposed development of towers being built up on the bluff's. Can't have all that riff raff around million dollar condos. Bit silly don't ya think?
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Why does it matter that the people in this article are gay? Unnecessary descriptor.
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The article is from the local gay newspaper
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Here's come the fun police! Just in time to ruin summer again!
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"The changes are the initiative of Grainger and UBC RCMP commander Darren Malcolm, both of whom transferred last summer from Surrey, where Grainger says they used similar tactics to tackle drug crime."
So they will use the same tactics for Surrey drug crime (which have clearly worked really well for Surrey) to patrol a beach? Awesome.
Are these cops really stupid enough to think that they will be effective by employing the same tactics as used in Surrey? Wreck beach and Surrey couldn't be more different. One is a gathering of hedonistic, relaxation-minded, hippies. The other is, well, Surrey.