No charges after Vancouver mayor claims he was verbally harassed at wine store

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Almost three weeks after Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart claimed he was verbally harassed at a Yaletown wine shop and was touched on the arm, the VPD says no crime occurred and no charges are being recommended.

Stewart said he was confronted on Sept. 18 and called police because the person who approached him was being aggressive and didn’t listen to his requests to leave him alone.

Police say after a “thorough investigation,” which involved speaking to everyone involved, interviewing witnesses, and combing over some other evidence, they found nothing criminal took place and the case is closed.

“At the end of the investigation, we’ve concluded no crime occurred, no criminal offence occurred and there’s no reason for the VPD to conduct any further investigation into this matter,” said Sgt. Steve Addison with the VPD.

At the time, Stewart had also said possible charges were being considered, but Addison says that’s not what’s happened.

“Our job is to respond, not to draw any conclusions at the beginning of the investigation but to conduct a thorough investigation and at the end of that investigation to determine whether a criminal offence has occurred. That’s what we did. We conducted an investigation. At the end of the investigation, we looked at all of the circumstances and all of the evidence that had been collected and we determined that no crime had occurred.”

#VPD determine no charges will be recommended after #Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart said was confronted at a wine store in Yaletown in Sept. “No crime occurred, no criminal offence occurred and there’s no reason for the VPD to conduct any further investigation into this matter.”

— Sonia Aslam (@SoniaSAslam) October 6, 2021

Addison confirms there was a verbal back and forth.

“The incident that occurred was, for all intents and purposes, a spirited discussion, a verbal confrontation, however, there was no criminal offence,” he added.

Stewart and the VPD have a strained relationship. Over the summer, the mayor stepped down from the Vancouver Police Board, saying he felt there was a lack of action to address allegations of systemic racism within the department. He has also suggested the police department should be under the control of the city, not the board.

However, Addison says any political attention this story received did not affect the investigation.

“These are the kinds of calls we respond to on a regular basis,” he said. “This type of dispute or altercation is not unusual in the city. In any case we investigate, our responsibility is to be completely fair and completely objective in our investigation. I appreciate because there were some unusual circumstances in this case because of the people who were involved, it did become quite public and a little bit political. I can appreciate this is a little bit of a different circumstance. We ensured that a proper review of all of the evidence took place to make sure our job had been done properly and thoroughly.”

Related article: Vancouver mayor, wife allegedly harassed at Yaletown shop over weekend

He adds a case like this would normally be over after the initial patrol investigation, but given the mayor was involved, it was escalated.

“Because of the attention this received, because of the people involved, and because the high-profile nature of it, this investigation was first reviewed by some very experienced detectives who work in our Investigations Division… beyond that, we asked another police agency, the New Westminster Police Department, to conduct an external review just to make sure that we hadn’t missed anything, that nothing was being overlooked. And after those independent reviews were done, we concluded there was no further reason to investigate.”

In a statement to NEWS 1130, the mayor said he “is grateful for the work of the VPD in this matter.”