Vancouver police budget increased by nearly half a million dollars for beach booze pilot

The Vancouver Police Department has added another $450,000 to its financials, growing the department’s budget for this year to over $415 million.

The additional funding was approved by Vancouver City Council Tuesday as part of a pilot project allowing alcohol on seven beaches in the city.

On Monday, the park board requested a total of $930,000 from the city to operate the pilot, with $450,000 allocated for policing.

Park board commissioner Tom Digby voted against Monday’s motion for the pilot, calling an increased police presence in parks and beaches alarming.

“To me, that was fairly disturbing because I don't think that’s consistent with what we think of in our parks,” he said.

According to data from the VPD, it’s seen an increase in violence at beaches since 2018. At Kitsilano Beach, reported violent incidents increased from four in 2018, to 12 in 2023.

At English Bay, violent calls increased from six in 2018 to 28 last year. The VPD adds that during that five year-period, overall calls for service slowly declined both city wide and at the two beaches. 

VPD Inspector Marco Veronesi said last year, the department didn’t have enough time to properly plan for the pilot.

He said the city’s funding is overtime pay for twelve officers who will work mostly nights and weekends.

“We want to keep people safe, and unfortunately sometimes that takes dollars to do,” he said.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Coun. Pete Fry asked Veronesi if the VPD was sufficiently resourced to respond to incidents that happen on the beach on a Friday or Saturday night with regular shift deployments.

Veronesi replied yes, adding the VPD has a dedicated beach deployment in District One – which includes the neighbourhoods of the West End, Yaletown, Coal Harbour and the Central Business District of Vancouver.

“They [council] need to ask us and we need to be able to answer to why we’re asking for resources above what our normal budget is,” Veronesi said. “In this case here, this is a pilot that’s happening in the middle of the year that we weren’t able to adjust for during budgeting process last year.”

Green councillor Adriane Fry said she was reluctant to see the increased funding for police and questioned the report -- calling some of the stats about 311 calls in the report contradictory.

“At one point there’s a statement made that 311 calls in 2023 only resulted in 19 complaints. Later on it talks about how those numbers have increased,” she said.

Veronesi said four officers will be deployed at southern beaches and eight will be deployed at northern beaches such as English Bay, despite it not being part of the alcohol pilot project.

“The deployment of more officers at English Bay is an education piece,” he said. “It’s sort of getting the city socialized to what’s allowed and what’s not allowed.”

The pilot project will begin June 1 and run until the end of September.