Edmonton police ‘don’t come,’ ‘too busy’ to address downtown vandalism, says business owner

An Edmonton jewelry store was the latest victim of a string of vandalism incidents in the downtown core, adding to the ongoing anger for business owners.

Jewelry store Bruni-Bossio Goldsmith was broken into Friday afternoon. Owner Giancarlo Bruni-Bossio says he was in the back of the store when it happened

“I hear a big bang and I turn around and I see a bunch of people out there, and I see the construction people come running, and all of a sudden they were yelling and they took off,” he recounted.

“This is really hard. This is a hard thing to swallow.”

Jeweller Bruni-Bossio Goldsmith stares out of his shop’s broken window. (Credit: CityNews/Sarah Chew)

Bruni-Bossio says he doesn’t know the party or parties responsible for the vandalism, but believes they were underprivileged.

“That hurts,” he said. “You know, we’re always dealing with these homeless people coming and making a mess over there.”

Bruni-Bossio was given an estimate of $3,000 to fix his windowpane, and he says he’s scared it could happen again.

He adds this is the second time his shop has been broken into in the 30-plus years he’s been running it – but he’s one of the lucky ones.

Sharps of glass after jewelry store Bruni-Bossio Goldsmith was vandalized. (Credit: CityNews/Sarah Chew)

A few doors down, the owner of Pazzo Pazzo says his Italian restaurant has been broken into six times in the past two years.

“Every time they smash the windows, they break in, they’re running… I don’t know if it’s the same people,” said James Burns. “By the way it sounds, they’re the same people or the same group, because they know exactly where they’re running.”

Burns shared his frustrations about the repetitive crimes in the downtown area to the police commission Thursday, along with other community members.

“The downtown business community by and large has observed a retreat of EPS from the streets of downtown over three years,” claimed Puneeta McBryan, executive director of the Downtown Business Association.

“An abandonment of tried-and-true service-oriented beat policing that deterred violent and harmful behaviour, and that made it clear what was unacceptable behaviour in public spaces.”

EPS did not confirm how many beat officers currently patrol the downtown core, but Bruni-Bossio told CityNews it took police approximately 50 minutes to arrive on scene, despite the detachment being three minutes away. Police apparently told him they were having a busy day.

Broken glass at Edmonton’s Pazzo Pazzo restaurant. (Credit: James Burns/handout)

Burns says whatever the number of officers, it needs to be much higher than it is now.

“You know we’ve had instances where we’ve had people, we’ve called the police, they don’t come. Like hours on end,” said Burns. “Unless it’s life threatening and there’s guns, they don’t come because they’re too busy. They’re overwhelmed with other things.”