THUNDER BAY — Brian Phillips is a frustrated man these days.
The building manager for the Arthur Street Medical Health Centre says intrusions onto the property have skyrocketed since a convenience store across the street started selling alcohol last year.
"This is their problem migrating onto my property," Phillips told Newswatch. "The trouble has increased tenfold. Incidents are happening about 50 times a week now. I've had to increase my security from a few hours a day to 14 hours a day because of incidents that go on inside and outside the building."
Formerly known as West Arthur Place, the seven-storey structure at Arthur and Norah Streets houses medical clinics and other professional offices.
Its neighbour is a Circle K convenience store that was recently revealed to be suffering the largest loss from thefts, robberies and other criminal activity of any Circle K location in Northern Ontario.
Phillips said people are constantly encroaching onto the medical building's property waiting for an opportunity to cross the road to the store.
"You could basically set your watch in the morning by the time the people traverse my parking lot and into the Circle K to steal the booze and whatever else they're taking...I'm constantly out in the yard along with my maintenance team and the security team, making sure people are not going through cars and harassing people for change. It's a safety thing."
He said he's had to put the building into virtual full-time lockdown by leaving only one entrance open, and monitored by security.
"We had some people that got into the building before the lockdown, into some of the suites where a door was left open for few minutes, and taking things. And we've had some purses and other stuff taken from inside the building in certain suites."
Phillips said incidents inside the building itself have fallen to perhaps one a week since he tightened security, but it's come with a price.
"These extreme measures are costing me almost quadruple the amount of money now to have security on to maintain safety in the building, and the tenants appreciate it. They're scared out there."
Outside the building, he's added cameras and raised the lighting level "to try to turn the nighttime into daytime," he said, but it's still necessary at times to have security staff escort people to their cars at 8:00 or 9:00 pm.
Phillips said he's contacted police on multiple occasions about incidents, and that they have responded most of the time, "but they're stretched to the max, and I can't expect them to come over every time, because they'd be here 10 or 15 times a day."
A Thunder Bay Police Service spokesperson said Wednesday data about recent criminal activity in that specific area is not readily available, but referred Newswatch to a recent statement by Chief Darcy Fleury who said police are concerned about rising crime at convenience stores and the effect petty crime is having on the business community in general.
Fleury said the TBPS is working with stakeholders to try to better manage the situation.
