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Friday, February 8, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Para Nordic prep Tents are being set up at Otway Nordic Centre for the 2019 World Para Nordic Skiing Championships. The event, presented by Caledonia Nordic Ski Club, will happen Feb. 15-24.

B.C. calls for action on overdoses Dirk MEISSNER Citizen news service

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This map shows the proposed location for a B.C. Cannabis Store in Pine Centre Mall.

Plan shows room for six new tenants in mall Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca Pine Centre Mall has made space for a half-dozen new tenants in the old Sears department store, a floor plan that is part of an application to city council to rezone a portion for a government-run recreational cannabis store. Along with pointing out a 400-squaremetre (4,309-square-foot) spot in the southeast corner where the Liquor Distribution Branch hopes to open up the shop, it marks out spaces for five other stores. One measures about the same size as the proposed spot for what could be the city’s second B.C. Cannabis Store, both with outside entrances. It also makes room for three 335-square-metre (3,600-square-foot) stores, plus one 1,280-square-metre

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(13,780-square-foot) tenant in the southwest corner and capped with a 3,900-square-metre (42,000-squarefoot) tenant on the north end. However, Pine Centre Mall marketing director Jessica Brown cautioned against reading too much into the image. “Our team is working to get as many quality tenants into that area as possible, but we’re not releasing any names or any final floor plans until the leases have been signed,” Brown said. The Sears at Pine Centre closed its doors in October 2017, creating a large void at one end of the mall. In a February 2018 press release, mall owner Morguard said the string of Sears closures would put a damper on the viability of the country’s shopping centres over the short term but would be partially offset by a stream of new international entrants to Canada. The company also said malls are being

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“re-envisioned as investors and landlords turn to non-traditional tenants including medical, services, entertainment and government agencies as part of their transformation into community hubs.” The Liquor Distribution Branch’s application remains subject to a public hearing and then final approval by city council. Staff is recommending approval, saying it is about one kilometre from John McInnis and Peden Hill schools, and separated from Pine Centre by Pine Valley Golf Course and Ferry Avenue, and over 300 metres from Prince George Secondary School, and separated by Massey Drive and “a considerable change in topography.” An application to rezone sites at 7250 and 7574 Willow Cale Rd. measuring 14.9 hectares (37 acres) for a cannabis production facility has also been advanced to the public hearing stage.

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VICTORIA — British Columbia’s mental health and addictions minister has joined health officials to call for a safer drug supply to fight the rising overdose death toll while urging the federal government to open a “courageous conversation” on decriminalization. “They are not prepared to do that at this time but we’re pushing the limits within British Columbia,” Judy Darcy said Thursday after the BC Coroners Service reported 1,489 people overdosed last year. The province is using “every available tool” to address the crisis but criminalizing people living with addiction has not worked, she said, adding some police forces are co-operating on projects that connect drug users to outreach teams to begin treatment instead of arresting them. “We have some pilot projects that are happening in downtown Vancouver, where we are working to increase people’s access to safe prescription alternatives to a poisoned street supply,” she said. “This is a poisoned drug supply that is killing people,” she said during a news conference in Surrey, B.C. The coroners service said 1,486 people died in 2017 despite efforts to combat the province’s public health emergency. Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, Dr. Evan Wood, of the BC Centre of Substance Use and Leslie McBain, who co-founded Moms Stop the Harm after her son died of a drug overdose, said that more must be done to fight the crisis. “Substance use disorder is a health issue and forcing those attempting to manage their health issue to buy unpredictable and often toxic substances from unscrupulous profit-motivated traffickers is unacceptable,” Lapointe said at a joint news conference at the B.C. legislature. Lapointe said the province must do things differently to save lives, adding the highly potent and addictive opioid fentanyl was detected in 86 per cent of the overdose deaths. — see ‘ALMOST 1,500, page 3

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