I usually don't ask panhandlers their names. But I will from now on. I hope they don't lie about their names. Maybe the government can PASS A LAW making panhandlers hand out business cards so victims will know who they're dealing with. What's another law, eh? Duh!

When business is slow people get agressive, that's normal.
What's a guy to do when he only collects 4 dollars every three hours? I mean, get real, it's a lot of work walking the sidewalks all day.

HD, I hope you are being sarcastic. With the aggressive manner in which alot of these people downtown ask for money its only a matter of time before it turns into assault. I have had to physically push them out of my way just to get to my car. Good to see the Police dealing with this matter. It is not wrong to ask for help, but demanding money is attempted theft, plain and simple.

Governments of all levels demand my money. I wish I could push them out of the way.

Two words:

Pepper spray.

We don't know who it was, but when we parked in front of the Northern Hardware store on Third Avenue a panhandler came up to the front of our car and stared at us for a long time.

We waited to see if he would go away and stayed in the car with the doors locked. After a while he came up to the driver's side, banged on the door and swore at us using very abusive rude language.

We decided that it was unsafe to get out of the car, left and took our business to the Home Building Centre on Central where we purchased the merchandise we had planned to get from the Northern.

We don't think that the Northern (where we normally shop) deserved to miss out on the business, but such are the facts.

We won't go to that area again. The last thing we need is somebody damaging the car or worse.

This is what i complain about on this site. The bums downtown. Is there no law that can deal with this growing problem?
God help one of them if they ever dent my vehicles.

getajob, You must know you will be the bad guy. You will get arrested. You will pay for your behavior. Don't be fooled into thinking that handling things yourself will be appreciated by the law. You will be deemed wrong for protecting your property and the bad guys will be smiling at you as you get hauled off to jail. Chester

This is the reality of downtown P.G. It's awful. Mind you, I'm not impressed with safety around Pine Centre either with that shooting at Xmas time. Drug money flying everywhere. How do we combat this?

We have some wonderful shop owners in downtown PG. Really impressive shops. Books and Company is a treasure.

I hate the spit on the sidewalks and the general dirt. We're not allowed to park on the street after 1:00 a.m.so the streets can be cleaned??? The filth on the sidewalks is disgusting.
Lets phone City Hall. That's their job!

I refuse to shop downtown just for this very reason. Ric's Grill and The Keg are also not on my top restaurant list because of where they are located. Food and service is great at both places but I would rather not get mugged or bugged by the losers who hang around downtown. It's actually a disgrace. Oh and by the way...how on earth are we all supposed to know who Robert Inglis is. Print a picture please.

You all have great points.. However, some lil puke cased our home and noted that our dog was locked in the house. He jumps the fence and steals a $1000 mountain bike so that he can ride around with his packsack selling drugs! (This happened)

Look! at what point do we have to start dealing with these issues? I'm most certain my rants as well as many others have been read by many Police, The City ,lawyers ect and have you seen or heard any response?

We bust our asses working hard just to be robbed, spat at, begged from, intimidated ect...my wife is afraid of the downtown, i have to escort her to and from work.

Every time I read the paper it’s either a drive by shooting, home invasion, robbery, assault or a murder!

Our Mayor and chief of police should hold a press conference on how they plan on dealing with this growing out of control city. (Action plan where is it?)

And you say filth...this city is so G**damn dirty is embarrassing! Let’s call a spade a spade here!

So after 40 years we give up....this city is getting worse, the streets are just unreal...it's grossly unmanaged.

(Do we want to leave our friends and family? no it is going to be hard)
Our place is up for sale and we are leaving for good.

So now there will be the bleeding hearts commenting once again about my rant and i am certain i will be called a Racist ,bigot or uncaring of the homeless...But open your eyes people this city is going downhill fast and no thanks to the drug lords might i add.

(WE ALL KNOW WHO THEY ARE) If you don’t ...ask someone close to you...you be surprised how many are known.

That's it! What a mess and a hassle to go downtown.
Hookers, panhandlers, you name it. This is looking more and more like a big city. Oh, wait! That's what we wanted to be: the big city in the north. We wanted to be a big city and now we have big city problems.
And with all the bad news in the forestry industry we'll see the amount of panhandlers and hookers triple in one year.

We won't go to that area again. The last thing we need is somebody damaging the car or worse.

I should add that we used to donate food and especially coffee in tins to the food kitchen downtown on 2nd Avenue but we stopped this year with some regrets because we come to believe that rather than just helping the persons who have just temporarily fallen on bad times we were actually helping to attract more and more of the kind of people who just come to PG from somewhere to avail themselves of the free food and lodgings. They appear to have settled into a comfortable routine.

After they have eaten they loiter about the downtown, killing time waiting for the next meal by accosting pedestrians and even people in cars.

A few years ago we were taking some visitors downtown to buy some cake from the German bakery on George Street.

Just as we were nosing into the parking space there a vagrant staggered up to the curb, exposed himself and with a big grin on his face urinated into the street.

All this happened in broad daylight.

We backed out red faced and embarrassed. Not a word was said. Later that day I made another trip all by myself to the bakery because I was not going to risk having something like that happen to us again.

The Keg, Ric's Grill, the Ramada, the bakery - they all used to be on our favourites' list.

No more. It's time a drastic overhaul is done on that whole area surrounding City Hall - too bad nobody in charge seems to know what to do.

Whoa now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Don't you ALL know that crime is down 44% over last year so what could you all have to moan about?

Robert Inglis is probably just one of the entreprenuers (?) that is part of the downtown revitalization program. I'm sure he just hangs around the $15,000 Terry fox monument and gets inspired.

Sorry for being so sarcastic but I'm as tired of the BS the city and the cops are feeding us about how much safer we are now than a year ago. I know we avoid the downtown like the plague too. Last time we went down to the Keg for dinner we had our vehicle robbed and vandalized, and dinner wasn't that great either!

Sigh! I am so sorry to all of you for the problems and scares you have had. I feel so bad as well for the poor who have to ask for money in order to eat that day. It is like any other situation, a few make it bad for all. I am sitting here reading about all the bad ones, are there any stories of people who are really down and out who ask nicely? Are there not any pan handlers, poor or even druggies who are actually nice when they ask for help? God help us if there is not!
I see more and more people who will fall from the middle class into the class of the poor in the future. What then? I do not think giving up is the answer but I also have no suggestions or ideas on how this can be improved. Not with the cost of living and the increases that will not quit in the near future. Things will get worse for many. All I know is that We MUST not ever lose our human nature of CARING for those who are less fortunate. Our souls need us to be kind, helpful and compationate otherwise it becomes cold.

:}

:}

It's choice.....plain and simple and i dont feel one bit sorry for the druggies or dealers. I'm sorry i never caught the bugger that ripped us off.

I believe that it is by and large a matter of choice too, although there are certainly hard cases that need to be supported and provided care. My beef is the able bodied scumbags roving around town on their bikes looking for prey.
I find them the most disgusting.

You said it....and i pray i see the dealer that stole my bike....

Hey wait a minute BS, its not "the cops" who are feeding the line about crime going down. You stop any one of the guys on the street and ask them if crime is going down and they'll just laugh and say, "yeah, right" Its the top cop of the city who is feeding all the BS. The recent study they had only had stats for half the year....double them and they surpass last years totals.

I tend to agree with "getajob". I believe it is a matter of choice of lifestyle. This is not the dirty thirties during the great depression when the world monetary system collapsed and threw thousands out of work.
This is an affluent society with a good economy and lots of jobs if people want to work. There is no reason that any able bodied male or female can not find some sort of work to support themselves and their family.
No they choose to hang around bars, deal drugs,get hooked, break into houses and business to get money to buy more dope.
As they have chosen that lifestyle from day one I do not think that they are down and out on their luck. I would be the first to help someone who is down and out in the true sense of the term. But I would not give a nickle to someone who I can see has 2 good legs and arms and can do a days work. I just point them to the nearest fast food restaurant where they can get an application.
No the real scum bags of our society are the drugs lords and organized criminal gangs who prey on these poor lost soles.
Get rid of the drug lords and criminal gangs and you get rid of most of the problem.

We met the aggressive panhandler Sun.night. We said No and he said what do you mean No and started to follow us. Where is he from and why is he here ?? Could it be P.G. is rolling out the Red Carpet for these types and they are coming from all over Canada ?? We have always had a few so called Homeless around but nothing like this. On Tue. a friend and I went for Lunch downtown, we drove by the Homeless Shelter and saw a young woman out picking up needles around the complex , then we saw a Hooker get picked up by a Guy in a nice big black truck . We parked and as we were walking to the restaurant we passed four men passing a bottle of Alcohol around. I guess it's ok to drink out in the open on George St. We still shop Downtown and live in the Bowl. Our fear is that they are going to try to clean up the Downtown and push this mess into our residential area. Is this what the new FriendShip lodge is all about??

So what happened in court? Was he charged? Was he held in custody? Is he loose on the street or having a psych evaluation at PGRH? What does he look like as people have said? Did the RCMP run out of pixels on their digital cameras? Is there a reason his image cannot appear in public?