A bylaw brought in by Vancouver city council in March to decrease the number of bear spray incidents doesn’t appear to be having an effect on crime involving young people.
Vancouver council was unanimous March 28 in its vote to regulate the sale and display of bear spray in what was an effort to reduce the number of robberies, assaults and threats that have escalated in the city.
The move was based on a staff report that said Vancouver police recorded approximately 3,000 violent offences between 2018 and 2022 that involved bear spray, many of them committed by young people.
New data released Wednesday by the Vancouver Police Department showed youth violent offences involving bear spray went up from 49 in the first half of 2022 to 85 in the same six-month period this year.
That’s an increase of 73.5 per cent.
Assaults increased from 34 to 58, robberies from 10 to 21 and threats went from five to six, according to the data, which is attached to a report that doesn’t provide a specific reason for the spike in bear spray use.
Psychological and social well-being
However, the author of the report does offer some insight into an increase in youth crime.
“There is growing evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic had an emotional impact on young persons, and a lasting detrimental impact on their psychological and social well-being,” the report said.
The report points to a U.S. study that found significant increases after the COVID-19 pandemic in “aggressive behaviours, poor frustration tolerance, school conduct problems and drug use across at-risk youths on probation regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity.”
In Vancouver, overall criminal offences where a young person was the accused were up 7.4 per cent when comparing 175 crimes in the first half of the year in 2022 to 188 over the same six-month period in 2023.
In addition, there has been a 9.1 per cent increase in youth-involved incidents where a young person was a victim of crime — 241 recorded cases in the first half of 2022 compared to 253 for the same period this year.
School liaison officers
During this time, the report pointed out the VPD’s school liaison officer program was not operating.
The controversial program, which was scrapped in May 2021 by school trustees, has since been reinstated and officers returned to schools this month.
A video posted Thursday on the social media platform X showed a man being bear sprayed by a woman outside the overdose prevention site at 1101 Seymour St. The man was lying on the ground when the woman kicked him and then discharged the spray.
The angle of the video makes it difficult to estimate the ages of the people, although both appear to be adults. A previous VPD report said bear spray offences involving adults spiked in 2020 and decreased since that time.
Council decided not to impose an outright ban on bear spray, so adults who require the spray for its intended use — to ward off bears and wildlife while in the woods — can still buy it in Vancouver.
Bear sightings rare
Unlike the Tri-Cities, the North Shore and other cities in the Lower Mainland, bear sightings are rare in Vancouver. The most recent public report occurred in April when a bear turned up on the Vancouver-Burnaby border. It was spotted near Boundary Road and Trinity Street.
Two other incidents of note over the past decade include a bear spotted on a garbage truck downtown in 2011, and another one wandering along train tracks near Gastown in 2021.
The changes to the licence bylaw imposed by council were:
• No one under 19, or who cannot provide identification, can buy bear spray.
• Bear spray sellers must keep the spray in a locked or inaccessible area from the public.
• Retailers must record details of each sale, keep the record for 12 months and make it available upon request to the chief licence inspector to ensure bylaw compliance.
Council also agreed to amend the ticket offences bylaw, which allows the city to levy a fine of $1,000 for anyone who doesn’t comply with the new requirements.
Ban bear spray?
At the time of the council vote, Coun. Pete Fry questioned how the new regulations would stop someone from ordering bear spray online.
“I'm hopeful that this bylaw will limit the prevalence of bear spray on our streets,” he said.
“Let's see how it works. If not, I would be interested in seeing some kind of approach under the Offence Act to maybe enact a bylaw that could actually prohibit people from walking around the streets carrying bear spray in the City of Vancouver.”
Fry said Thursday it's now probably an issue that has to be addressed by the provincial government, noting other municipalities are also experiencing incidents involving bear spray.
“If you're buying bear spray in Surrey, and using it in Vancouver, where's the jurisdictional overlap?" he said. "I think that's maybe a larger conversation that we need to take on.”
