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Enhanced security planned for Pride London Festival

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The rainbow coloured pride flag sways in the breeze outside Artisan Bakery in London’s Old East Village.

Bakery owner Brie Sims is hoping that’s where exactly where it stays for some time to come. That’s because it’s the third flag she’s had up in just six months.

“We've had our flag ripped down a few times and an attempt to kind of light it on fire,” said Sims. “So we're on our third flag now.”

Located across from the Western Fair District, Artisan Bakery is one of the first businesses along the route for this year’s Pride London parade.

Something Sims hopes to celebrate safely with her staff.

“For myself personally I am concerned that there is a risk to being gay every day, not just in June or during the parade,” Sims said.

Pride London tells CTV News that security at the 2022 edition of the Pride London Festival will be greater than in previous years.

That includes 26 police officers stationed at stop lights along the parade route, and private security at various events.

“We are certainly having conversations about additional security measures, and ensuring everybody feels safe,” said Stephen D’Amelio, vice president of Pride London.

“We're hiring extra security guards that are there the whole time the festival is,” added Pride London President Deb Abdalla. “We're going to have extra security guards overnight to protect everything. We want to make sure people feel, like Stephen said, people feel safe when they come to the festival. But for the Pride Parade, we do have a number of police officers that are at the closed roads.”

Pride London said it will be closely watching Toronto’s Pride Festival, which takes place this weekend.

Pride Toronto has partnered with private security firms for its events, and is conducting weapons checks to enter designated areas.

Discussions over security at the Pride London Festival come as the community faces acts of vandalism around the region, including the theft of pride flags in Oxford County, and paint being splattered on a rainbow crosswalk in Ingersoll, Ont.

“We're not going to see violence here,” said a man CTV News spoke with in downtown London. “I'm one of those people, I've lived here for the better part of my life. The Pride Festival would be a quiet one here. If they wanted to beef up security it would be for optics only.”

A woman, who identified herself as a member of the LGBTQ2 community, added that she doesn’t expect violence at the Pride Festival either.

“And I've never seen violence at Pride, outside Pride. I mean there's protesters, but there's protesters but they've always just been loud and noisy,” she said.

The Pride London Festival gets underway on July 14 and wraps up with the parade on July 24. 

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