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Parking lot anger Woman appalled after panhandlers harass customers for shopping cart coins
Laura Busch
Northern News Services
Published Friday, September 27, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A run-in at an uptown grocery parking lot has prompted one Yellowknife woman to speak out about the deterioration she has seen in the relationships between street people and the rest of residents since moving to the city in the 1980s.
An altercation in the Trevor's Your Independent Grocer parking lot uptown last week has one Yellowknifer wondering what has happened to her "little town." - Laura Busch/NNSL photo |
Donna Young was heading into Trevor's Your Independent Grocer (previously the uptown Extra Foods) on Sunday when she noticed two men following two women leaving the store with their cart into the parking lot.
Having street people ask to return a cart in exchange for the loonie inside is common at the store and not a problem, said Young, but, to her, these men appeared aggressive.
This, on top of the spree of recent news regarding assaults against women prompted Young to stay and watch the situation unfold.
"I wasn't sure that everything was going to be OK, so I just wanted to watch and make sure," she said.
When she turned to re-enter the store, one of the men approached her and asked for change. She responded with a "no."
Young alleges the man then became angry and started shouting obscenities at her before returning to the two women with the cart.
"I'm not used to that from the street people here," said Young, who moved to Yellowknife in 1986.
She recently returned to the city after moving away for four-and-a-half years and said she has noticed a marked difference in the behaviour of street people.
In this case, the dollar deposit required for the grocery cart was enough to spark aggression.
Of the two Your Independent Grocer stores in Yellowknife, Trevor's is the only one to require a deposit for a cart. The Co-Op store does not require a deposit either.
"We use a deposit system on shopping carts at Trevor's Your Independent Grocer because we have found it deters the loss of carts, and this helps us to ensure that we have enough carts available for use by our customers when they need them," stated the store's parent company's public relations team in an e-mail response to Yellowknifer.
"We want our customers to feel safe when visiting our stores, and we have enhanced the staffing at the store to assist in this," stated Julija Hunter, vice-president of public relations with Loblaw Companies Ltd., adding store management is aware of the issue with people harassing customers for their loonies.
The "enhanced staffing" refers to the hiring of security guards, something Young said she was surprised to see, although she was grateful for the guard on duty that day. The guard phoned the police and went out to the parking lot to stay with the women until police arrived.
"I just don't feel as safe, with everything I've been hearing," she said. "Something needs to be done, but I'm not sure what."
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