Vancouver BIA urges Kelowna companies to welcome injection site

The head of a business improvement association in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) wantsKelowna businesses to welcome a supervised drug use site to the Okanagan city's downtown core.

LandonHoyt, executive director of Hastings Crossing Business Improvement Area said a supervised injection site wouldlikely mean fewerpeople doing drugs in public,reduced crime, and cleaner streets in the area.

"From our perspective, the injection site itself has not had any sort of negative impact on the business community [in the DTES,]" Hoyt said in an interview with CBC Radio One's Daybreak South.

"Any sort of street disorder that existsnow people injecting on the sidewalks in front of businesses, creating litter, whatever they are going to be taken inside to a safe, covered injection site where it is not happening on the street."

The Interior Health Authority is looking at opening a supervised drug use site at theKi-Low-Na Friendship Society on Leon Avenue in downtown Kelowna along with asite in Kamloops, B.C.

Undermines safety, says bizgroup

The Downtown Kelowna Association (DKA) a non-profit business improvement association is opposed to the Leon Avenue location as is the owner of two restaurants on Leon Avenue that are situated across the street from the proposed site.

The DKA feels the supervised drug use site will undermine public safety and stall revitalization efforts in the neighbourhood.

RestaurateurNick Sintichackiswould rather see a mobile facility than a permanent site on Leon Avenue as a way to spread the service around the city.

Businesses shouldpraising the proposal

Hoytsaid Vancouver's supervised injection site, Insite, in the city's Downtown Eastside has improved the neighbourhood and not made it more dangerous or less appealing.

"We have lots of restaurants and cafes and things like that as well," Hoytsaid.

"If anything Kelowna businessesshould be praising a proposal to bring in an injection site."

Thursday was the last day for pubic input through Interior Health's website about the proposed sites in Kelowna and Kamloops.

With files from CBC Radio One's Daybreak South.