'We have to lock the door'; Business owners in downtown St. Thomas, Ont. taking security and safety concerns to council

Downtown business owners in St. Thomas, Ont. say they are "fed up" with the problems related to homelessness, drug addiction and mental health in the city’s core.

At Deneire’s Gallery of Fine Art, the only entrance is blocked by a man sleeping on the door step.

"It’s driving customers away," said Shawn Deneire, the gallery’s owner. "They see that and they just keep walking."

According to Deneire, it’s not uncommon to have to chase people away.

"Hopefully they're gone long enough that somebody wants to come in [and] they come in," he said. "We've got we've got building owners here that have their business in there for 20 to 30 years and they're actually paying to leave their own building and renting out for somebody else."

Deneire claimed his girlfriend was assaulted outside his business, which is located at Talbot Streeet and Princess Avenue.

He and others have compiled a list of concerns and the gallery at City Hall will likely be full Monday night when they take their lived experience to city council.

Across the street from city hall, Lisa Smith was meeting with police Sunday after someone smashed the fron twindow of her business with a hammer.

The front window of bliss Hair Salon in St. Thomas was smashed with a hammer overnight on Sunday Sept. 11, 2022 (Source: Lisa Smith)"We have to lock the door," said Smith of Bliss Hair Salon. "Thirty years I've worked downtown and never had to lock the door or felt uncomfortable during the day."

As of Oct. 1, she’s moving out of the core to the east end.

"It’s the alley right beside us," said Smith."It's nothing to have like six to 10 people sitting here in a circle like shooting up in their fingers, their toes. There is typically three to four tents in the alley with laundry and garbage. Screaming yelling and profanity."

Property owner Brad Beausoleil said the homeless population is costing him thousands of dollars.

"We’re around $20,000 with the security, damage, repair and our air conditioner and windows," said Beausoleil."Also a really good long term 30-year tenant told us they were leaving because of what's happening right in this corner. Right now service providers, business owners, building owners, we realize it's just not integrating well with our downtown."

Mayor Joe Preston said council is listening and believes they have a strong long-term plan to combat the issues that come with homelessness, drug addiction and mental health.

"We're doing some of the right things," said Preston. "We've got a great building being built on Queen Street right now [that] will open in April, but I can't get them to build it any faster. It's 45 more units of supportive housing. We recognize we need to stay above the capacity of the homelessness in our community continue to work on the poverty issues that are here. We think as a council, that's what we've done the last four years."

According to preston there was no permanent shelter before the current council and it’s twice the size of the previous one. He said they built the Rail City Lofts which is 16 units of supportive housing with the 45 more coming next year.

"This week we also added four special constables to our walking the beat police force," Preston added.

Those are long-term plans — In the short term, Preston believes they need to work with the shelter to keep its clients away from the businesses on Talbot Street.

Business owners in St. Thomas say the Homeless population is costing them thousands of dollars in lost business, and damage repairs (Source: Brent Lale/CTV London)
"I can’t put the charity down because they do a hell lot of heavy lifting in this community," said Preston. "But in the area of businesses, we need to make sure that the operators of the Inn [Out of the Cold] are also outside saying ‘come on in, we've got support for you and we've got meals for you, and we've got beds for you but you can't scatter your stuff out here.’ We need them to tell the clients, 'you really have to come in you can't sleep in that doorway'."

Preston also hopes that when business owners come to council chambers they will have some potential solutions and not just complaints.

Lawyer Hillary Vaughan will speak on behalf of the businesses at city hall on Monday.