NEWS RELEASE

New Initiatives to Tackle Rowdiness, Violence in Downtown Areas

(Thursday, November 9/06) -- A number of new initiatives to address increasing rowdiness and violence in the downtown districts resulted from a meeting of municipal, provincial and business community representatives at City Hall today.

Mayor Peter Kelly, Justice Minister Murray Scott and Mark Parent, Minister Responsible for the Nova Scotia Alcohol and Gaming Commission, met with representatives of policing agencies, various business commissions, food, restaurant and cabaret associations, and hotel and tourism officials to share information and identify initiatives to make the downtown areas safer.

Among the action items agreed upon today are:

? Province has agreed to allow HRM to proceed with the recruitment process to hire an additional 20 new police officers under its Safe Communities initiative.
? Surveillance cameras now available will go into operation in various downtown locations beginning next week.
? Province will be partnering with HRM on the Mayor’s Roundtable on Violence.
? Nova Scotia Alcohol and Gaming Commission is currently reviewing regulations for establishments serving liquor and encouraged the public and business owners to provide feedback int his process.
? Metro Transit will be asked to examine the cost of establishing a weekend, late night special bus service from the downtown bar districts to the universities and other central transit depots.
? Commitment from the groups represented today to work together on short- and long-term issues.

Mayor Kelly said: "The meeting today was not about finger-pointing or assigning blame. Violent crime is affecting our entire community and perceptions of our community and we, as a community, are going to have to work collectively to deal with it."

Mayor Kelly indicated this initial meeting will be followed by a more extensive public approach of a Mayor's Roundtable on Violence. The roundtable will involve a much broader discussion of issues throughout HRM and time frames to allow for extensive public and stakeholder input from citizens and groups throughout the Municipality.

"I am very pleased with today’s discussion," Mayor Kelly said. "There was agreement that we need short-term solutions and we arrived at several solutions this afternoon. There was also a recognized need for a long-term vision to address the root causes of these problems and identify solutions to address them throughout HRM, which I hope the Mayor’s Roundtable on Violence will achieve."

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Mayor Peter Kelly
490-4010