By Spencer Sterritt

“Living document” P.A. Community Alcohol Strategy unveiled

Apr 12, 2016 | 5:22 PM

After years of anticipation and questions, the Prince Albert and Area Community Alcohol Strategy has been launched.

Members of the alcohol strategy steering committee spoke in City Hall’s foyer Tuesday, April 12, explaining how the alcohol strategy in its current state was a “living document” and not final.

“What we’re trying to do is come up with a way that alcohol is accepted in our community, but there’s a culture that can deal with it,” councillor and steering committee member Rick Orr said. “We want a healthy community. We want it to be socially acceptable, but the social norms have to be dealt with as a community.”

Recommendations in the document include more proactive policing, more peer support and less peer pressure and larger fines for impaired driving and under-age drinking.

Since it’s a living document, steering committee member and MADD Prince Albert president Trina Cockle said recommendations in the document were what they heard from the community, and they didn’t leave any suggestions out.

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“You can’t take things out but we can certainly add,” Cockle said. “That’s why we need to have a double-check with the community. We’re going to review the document yearly (and) review successes as they happen.”

Some recommendations found in the alcohol strategy are impossible to achieve at the municipal level, such as increasing the legal drinking age to 21 and legalizing marijuana.

Orr said having the recommendations included in the strategy does not mean they are adopted. “It’s simply there to be talked about,” he said.

Facts found inside the document state 5,595 people were arrested for public intoxication from May 2009 to May 2012, which consumed $2,548,994 of the Prince Albert Police Service’s budget. 1,341 hours of policing was spent on public intoxication arrests in 2012.

When questioned why public intoxication rates and the amount spent on alcohol are higher in P.A. than other cities, Orr claimed it was because P.A. is a gateway city to the north. “We’re a gathering place, we’re the place where people come to socialize.”

Much of the drafted alcohol strategy concerns under-age drinking, with recommendations to work towards making drinking unpopular, promoting alcohol-free events and including youth on advisory boards.

Shelley Storey, Community Mobilization Prince Albert’s education representative, as well as a representative for Prince Albert’s Catholic and Sask. Rivers school divisions, said students were involved in focus groups throughout the formation of the draft document.

“We had really good input from youth both urban and rural. Certain focus questions were asked, and that is all part of the strategy. Youth are very honest, and one thing they did say is that they’d like to go to things that aren’t focused on alcohol, they’d like to have more activities where alcohol isn’t even necessarily there.”

Westmore Public High School principal Cory Trann could only speak for his school, but he said focus groups worked to include a wide variety of youth demographics. “We had students in that Grade 10,11 and 12 area who have some experience. We sent more than just our class presidents and student leaders.”

He said data was also collected from schools, providing input on how youth feel about alcohol.

Movement was first underway in 2012 to work towards a community alcohol strategy. The project lost momentum in late 2014 and summer of 2015, which steering committee members attributed to a shakeup of leadership.

Cockle said she understands why the community was frustrated with how long it took to create the alcohol strategy draft. “Even myself I wish we could pick up the pace, but I think it’s such an important scenario we have to be careful we’re taking all the proper steps to get there.

“I can understand their frustration but we’re not going to give up on this.”

The unveiling of the alcohol strategy was just a step on the path to a completed plan.

Community consultations will take place at the P.A. Exhibition Centre on May 5 and May 12 at 6:30 p.m., where the community can continue to add their thoughts and opinions on the alcohol strategy, and how it moves forward.

The full document can be found online.

ssterritt@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit