Edmonton considering restricting bear, pepper sprays

One man faces several charges after deploying bear spray in this hospital emergency room earlier this month, and continued to spray as he ran through the hospital.

This is just one of the latest OC spray incidents, something Edmonton City Council is looking at minimizing by restricting the sale of these products.

Edmonton’s Community and Public Services Committee passed the motion to crack down on the sale of “Oleoresin Capsicum”, commonly known as OC spray without debate, meaning it will go to council at their next meeting for final debate. 

Councillor Ashley Salvador expressed her concern over stories of bear spray being deployed in public spaces such as schools and retail stores.

“And I think those are the exact types of instances that we need to crack down on. That is not the intended purpose of bear spray, and to know that it’s being used in those ways is incredibly alarming,” said Salvador.

An Edmonton Police Service report shows incidents involving bear or pepper spray has risen from around 1,700 incidents in 2015, to over 3,300 last year.

“I don’t expect that this is somehow going to be a silver bullet and stop every incident from that ever happening, but it’s a matter of if there’s a way we can better help, why not take that step? To me, this feels like a very minimal action in terms of onus on the folks that are going to be selling it in the first place, and if it has the potential of helping police on this then why not,” said Andrew Knack, Edmonton city councillor.

If passed, it could:

• Prohibit the sale of OC spray to anyone under the age of 18;
• Retailers would be required to secure all OC spray products and prevent the public from accessing them directly, and requires retailers to provide the buyer with city-approved messaging on appropriate and inappropriate uses of the product;
• Businesses would be required to keep record of sales including the buyer’s name, date of birth and the OC spray serial number;
• Misuse of OC Spray could result in a $1,000 fine for a first offense, and double for subsequent offenses.

“To see some additional steps being taken, some stronger measures through our business, licensing by law. I think it’s a good move, and I think the community will be pleased to see that city is taking it seriously,” said Salvador.