More than 40 Duncan business owners and other interested parties gathered for an emergency meeting to discuss the worsening problem of aggressive downtown panhandlers.

“It’s getting pretty crazy with panhandling downtown and it’s driving downtown shoppers away,” said Janet Martinez of Excellent Frameworks.

“Sometimes they get very aggressive and sometimes they get very drunk — we had one guy peeing in the park, that was nice,” she said.

“I had to call the police twice on Saturday, once the Saturday before and twice the Saturday before that and I’m not the only merchant having to do that.”

Duncan’s mayor told the group he understands the business community’s frustrations.

“The concerns are mounting, and justifiably so,” he told the crowd assembled Thursday morning in council chambers.

“But it’s complex and difficult to deal with street people,” he said, before telling the group a collaborative effort from all areas of the Cowichan community is needed to deal with the problem.

Martinez agreed, but suggested initial answers might lie with police efforts.

“There isn’t an anti-panhandling bylaw (but) I thought loitering and being a general nuisance would be an offence,” she said.

“The RCMP did tell me Friday there are new provincial laws coming out that will give them the opportunity to ticket people at which I just started laughing hysterically because these people have no address, no money, or the money they do get immediately goes across the street to the liquor store.

“Do you really ticketing them is sensible? That’s a crazy resolution.”

Not necessarily, said North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP Insp. Kevin Hewco.

“We have to prove (in court) your business is being interrupted by these individuals,” he said.

Hewco — who noted some panhandlers make between $50 and $100 per day — said issuing tickets and getting the offenders in court allows the law to put certain conditions on release orders, conditions such as “red” or “no go” zones that would bar the suspects from being in certain sections of town.

“Giving these fellows tickets may seem a waste of time, but it starts the documentary chain,” he said.

If the suspect breached the conditions, it’s possible he or she could sit in jail until their next court date.

Still, Hewco said cops aren’t the solution to the larger dilemma.

“Even if they went to jail for a short stretch, they’ll be back on the street,” he said.

“Policing will be a small component to solve this problem.”

Martinez added she doesn’t dislike the homeless panhandlers, but something has to be done before all business is driven out of the downtown area.

“What needs to happen is these people need to be helped,” she said.

“A lot of them are drug-addicted, alcohol-addicted and some of them have mental issues and I see that as a health problem, not as a judicial or police problem.”

Martinez said she was especially saddened to learn three homeless people died in Duncan last year.

“What kind of society are we where we let that happen?

“It’s not appropriate to have all this money spent on the (upcoming 2010 Winter) Olympics and other things when this goes on.”

Organizers are planning to have another meeting — when a Crown prosecutor and a representative from Cowichan Tribes will be invited to attend — in an effort to come up with a concrete plan.

For more on this story, read Wednesday’s News Leader Pictorial, or log onto www.newsleader pictorial.com.