Chamber of Commerce and local business owners meet to discuss opioid crisis impact

When asked whether some business owners are concerned about the opioid crisis affecting the bottom line, she replied that some of them are.

“Some of the concerns expressed was the observation of the public consumption and being able to see that. The other behaviour is whether people are high, or they appear to be intoxicated and is that behaviour intimidating to people, are they in a dopey kind of state or are they aggressive from that behaviour?”

Pyrch says this is an important issue in the community and has been for some time, so the Chamber engaged with the City of Lethbridge and ARCHES earlier in the year to bring information forward about the programs that are being provided and about what they’re doing to provide safety in Lethbridge.

“What we’ve had is a response back from businesses saying they wanted an opportunity to speak about their experiences and to make sure that’s being captured and addressed.”

There have been several initiatives put forth locally and provincially, to try to reduce the number of lives lost and people affected by the opioid crisis, including the opening of the Supervised Consumption Site earlier this year.

The bulk of business owners on hand for the discussion came from the downtown area, according to Pyrch, as well as businesses located near the safe consumption site.

“That was who was talking to us primarily today, but some of the businesses that were here today have multiple locations around the city and they said they weren’t immune from the same experiences at those locations.”

The Chamber of Commerce currently has a survey online for business owners from around town to share their experiences.

“Right now, we’re looking at gathering information. It would be important for business owners to go online and provide us with that information about their experiences. At that point we have within our organization the ability to call together committees or task forces to help deal with what the best solutions are,” Pyrch stated, adding they’ve asked that people include where their businesses are located on the survey because they want to be able to identify where it’s happening in the city.

“Whether it’s an issue just downtown or if it’s everywhere, and to be able to provide our recommendations based on that.”

by Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

Chamber of Commerce and local business owners meet to discuss opioid crisis impact

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