Staff Sergeant Brian Hunter reported year end crime statistics to Parksville city council on Monday.

Comparing 2009 crime statistics to the previous year Hunter said most categories dropped including assaults from 91 in 2008 to 87 last year, residential break and enters were down from 61 to 46, motor vehicle thefts dropped by two to 39 and thefts from vehicles dropped considerably from 159 to 101.

The biggest number drop was in the mischief to business and other category which fell from 316 to 226.

The serious category of criminal code traffic incidents such as hit and run and dangerous driving causing death dropped from seven to six.

All drug infractions dropped by 21 incidents to 37, but Hunter pointed out this is not actually good since it is a mostly self generated category reflecting how active members are in going out and finding problems.

He said similarly most of the categories that went up were a positive reflection of increased enforcement such as liquor act offences climbing from 170 to 198 and provincial traffic offences increasing from 1,020 to 1,313.

The most notable jump in the year to year stats was an increase in business B&Es from 33 to 89.

“Sixty six of the B&Es were done by April 2009,” Hunter pointed out, before the arrest of an individual who was responsible for many, though not all of them. In the first month of this year they only had one.

“In a perfect world I would like to see (the crime stats) go down year after year, though of course that’s mathematically impossible.”

He also said the overall crime rates in Parksville, Qualicum Beach and the Oceanside rural area all dropped in 2008, the latest year for which they have complete numbers.

The crime rate — the number of reported crimes divided by 100,000 population — dropped most significantly in Parksville from 152 the previous year to 131, which is just below the 132 provincial average for the 29 municipalities of 5,000 to 15,000 people. That is Parksville’s lowest rate in at least five years.

Qualicum Beach dropped slightly from its fairly stable rate of 86, down to 83 and the rural area of the Oceanside detachment dropped from 58 to 48, well below the equivalent provincial average of 74 incidents per 100,000 population.

Hunter said Parksville has higher rate than the neighbouring areas because there are more opportunities and a lot more people passing through. He gave the example that many of the estimated 35,000 people that attended Parksville’s Canada Day celebration were from outside of Parksville, but any of they crimes they might have committed in the city count towards Parksville’s stats.