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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Public intoxication and other downtown social issues will be addressed at a round table discussion at City Hall early in the new year.

Tim Doyle, executive director of the Yellowknife Chamber of conference, stands in front of the Gold Range Hotel on 50 Street. The street, commonly referred to as "Range Street" is a popular spot for public intoxication. City Hall is hosting a roundtable discussion on public intoxication and other social issued in January. - Laura Busch/ NNSL photo

Telling of his most recent encounter with the downtown social issue, Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce executive director Tim Doyle said he was walking past the parking lot next to Centre Square Mall at about 5 p.m. on Tuesday evening when he saw about five or six adults leaning against the building openly drinking.

"I just kind of glanced over at them and they just sort of waved at me like, 'hey, you know, you're staring at us,' and it's like, this is the main street," Doyle said. "I'm not quite sure when this became accepted as a normal, socially accepted way of doing things."

Such scenes are driving retailers away from the downtown core, and discouraging families from coming downtown top shop, said Doyle.

"You're not going to have families using the downtown core if they have to go through fist fights, and if they've got people begging them for money," Doyle said. "It's time to stop sort of just looking around and pretending it's not happening; it is happening. It's driven our retail sector out of the downtown core."

The chamber has called for no-loitering bylaws and a mental health and addictions treatment centre to address the issues.

Called by Lydia Bardak, a city councillor and executive director of the John Howard Society, the upcoming meeting was originally scheduled for Dec. 7, but was postponed due to a sudden family matter, and will now be held in early January, Mayor Gord Van Tighem said.

"It will be rescheduled to happen and it will be a continuing conversation about our city and how we can make it better, for everyone," Van Tighem said.

The John Howard Society has been running the city's day shelter for about two years, and will bring observations and questions they have gathered to encourage a conversation with the round table. The aim is for the agencies invited to pool information, financial or human resources, and ideas from other jurisdictions to work together on addressing solutions to the downtown social issues. Public intoxication is among the main issues the society is concerned about, in addition to other social issues such as homelessness and mental illness.

Parties invited to the discussion include city councillors, MLAs, all support agencies who make up the Yellowknife Homelessness Coalition, and the business chamber.

Various people within the GNWT, which controls health spending, have also been invited to the round table discussion in January.

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