ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT

Date: May 5, 2000
Author/Local: Insp. Murray Day-717-3075
RTS No. 1358

CC File No. 4206/1376

CS&B: May 18, 2000

TO:	Standing Committee on City Services and Budgets
FROM:	Chief Constable
SUBJECT:	Symphony of Fire Policing

RECOMMENDATION

A. THAT the City of Vancouver absorb the additional policing costs related to the Benson & Hedges Symphony of Fire, for the year 2000 events as outlined in this report.

B. THAT the Year 2000 event be monitored and if the issues of concern cannot be mitigated, that the event organizers be encouraged to re-schedule on successive Wednesdays and Sundays in the month of September.

CITY MANAGER’S COMMENTS

The Symphony of Fire is a popular, free, regional event. As it has become more popular, new issues have arisen. The issue in this report is whether the City should absorb the extra policing costs for off-site locations, to deal with the extra crowds in the downtown. While one can argue support for both sides of this issue, it is appropriate to consider it in the context of general policing, which has been to recover only direct costs on-site. This is not a program expenditure in the Police budget but expenditures have occurred in past years.

I expect trying to charge the Symphony of Fire for all extra policing in the downtown for the event nights will lead to cancellation of the event. Therefore, the City Manager RECOMMENDS approval of A and B.

POLICY

Council approved the Symphony of Fire in 1997 for 5 years with a provision that the event organizer understands that circumstances could change appreciably and impacts of the event may exceed what Council is prepared to accept. In this case, if impacts cannot be reduced, Council would review its approval of the event.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this report is to advise Council of the concerns of the Chief Constable in relation to policing the Symphony of Fire.

DISCUSSION

In the past, the Department has staffed for the Symphony of Fire event with a combination of on-duty, owed-time and call-out members. The VPD has recovered the costs associated with the closure of the West-End and Kitsilano Point, including Reserve and Regular traffic point members, additional Communications Operators, and Supervisory staff, and the deployment of “on-site” “Beach Patrol” squads. After the Stanley Cup riot, the VPD put into place additional event policing for the “off site” rea of the West End. This included beat teams for Robson Street, greeting teams for the downtown SkyTrain stations, quick response units to respond to priority calls within the closure area, and specialist squad members such as video units and the Gang Squad. The majority has been provided on overtime with no cost recovery. This has resulted in increased costs that have been borne by the Police Department up to this point.

While the actual cost of owed-time hours is not calculated, the 1999 overtime cost for policing the four nights was $310,850 with a recovery of $132,000 leaving a deficit of $178,850. If this event were policed totally on an overtime basis, the cost would rise to approximately $480,000 with a net deficit of $348,000. Emergency & Operational Planning Section (EOPS) is advised by the organizers of the event, that their budget is limited and that a substantial increase would exceed their ability to pay.

Since the first event in 1989, the Symphony of Fire has become the largest annual event in the City of Vancouver. It is generally held during the last week of July, starting on a Saturday and continuing on the successive two Wednesdays and Saturday for a total of 4 evenings. This year’s event will be held on July 29, August 2, 5 and 9.

Policing starts at 17:00 hours with a presence on and around the beaches at Kitsilano Point and the West End. The Kitsilano Point traffic closure occurs at 18:00 hours. Police presence escalates until the last units are deployed at approximately 19:30 hours to institute the West End traffic closure. In total, approximately 220 members are deployed per event night.

The Fireworks starts at 22:15 hours and continues until 22:45 hours. Typical attendance is estimated between 135,000 and 250,000 persons dependent on weather conditions and the day of the week with Saturdays generally the best attended and Wednesdays being the most troublesome, given the higher percentage of youth in the crowd. Generally the final day has the greatest attendance as all participating countries put on a final performance.

There is currently a plethora of extra duty demands on police deployment. Extra operational shifts, investigative projects, court, filming, sporting and other events generate the majority of these. The result is that EOPS has considerable difficulty filling the demand for extra police resources, particularly during the summer months with heavy annual leave commitments. The Symphony of Fire is an operational priority and must be staffed first, which in some cases results in not meeting other commitments.

The Reserve Force strength has dwindled in the past year. The net result is that only a fraction of the 75 traffic points could be staffed by the Reserved in 1999. Few of these points are suitable for control by event marshals. This has increased traffic control costs substantially as a regular member on call-out costs three times as much as a Reserve. Reserve strength is not expected to recover to sufficient levels until 2001.

As this event has grown in popularity, the police deployment has had to keep pace. When owed-time hours became available with the inception of the 11-hour day, agreement was reached between the VPD and the VP Union that two owed-time shifts per member would be set aside for special event policing. The Operations Division has now indicated that these hours are better spent for community policing projects and will be significantly reduced for special events this year. As the Symphony of Fire is a priority, owed time shifts will be maintained this year, however, the costs of policing several smaller events will increase. This may be beyond the capability of the organizers to pay and will again result in the Department having to absorb additional costs.

The Symphony of Fire has traditionally been an event that is attended mainly by families and does not create any operational policing concerns. The event remains such for the initial period leading up to and including the fireworks itself; but it is the post event activities that present the biggest challenge to successfully concluding each night. The police deploymentand strategies are under review for this year’s event and Emergency & Operational Planning will be working with all stakeholders to devise new responses to these challenges. It is hoped that these strategies will mitigate the post event disruptions.

The Vancouver Police Department requires direction on the funding of future Symphony of Fire events and Council’s willingness to cover the policing deficit generated by this special event.

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(c) 1998 City of Vancouver