London Drugs clarifies potential store closure in downtown Vancouver

Two days after reports that London Drugs was considering shutting down one of its locations in downtown Vancouver because a jump in violent crime was making its staff and customers feel unsafe, it’s now clarifying that’s not the case.

President and Chief Operating Officer Clint Mahlman is correcting information that first surfaced via a city councillor. On Tuesday, Coun. Peter Meiszner posted on social media that the flagship location at Granville and Georgia streets was shuttering because of “rampant shoplifting.”

London Drugs followed up and said that wasn’t the case, but it was considering closing a location in Downtown Vancouver.

Now, Mahlman confirms London Drugs isn’t thinking about closing any stores, and tells The Canadian Press the company isn’t sure where that initial information came from. It says it’s disappointed reports of a potential closure surfaced because it sparked fear among its staff and customers.

Regardless, Mahlman says the issue of violence and theft is a big problem.

In an interview with CityNews on Tuesday afternoon, Mahlman says the issue has reached a crisis point.

“All options now have to be on the table,” he said. “We’ve been trying to get through to governments of all stripes, of all political types, for decades and we just haven’t been able to get their attention at how important it is to protect our employees, not just at London Drugs, but all retailers. It’s come to the point, as we’ve seen, many small businesses have had to close due to high costs and one of those costs is theft and violence.”

Mahlman has maintained the company will do what it can to remain open.

“We need help from the government. They are responsible, accountable, and we elect them to help protect our citizens on our streets and our employees and we need them to find a solution for us. We can’t prescribe it for them because that is their role… but we are imploring them to find a way to help protect our employees and citizens.”

He adds the company has invested resources into trying to keep locations safe, but it hasn’t worked to the extent it would like it to. “We routinely hear from our customers, that they just don’t feel safe. It’s not a Vancouver issue. We see this throughout the province in every community we serve.”

Mahlman says the issue of retail theft “consumes” him.

“The safety of our employees and our customers is what every CEO, COO, and president thinks about and that’s what we’re obsessed about and why we’re at this crisis point.

“I will say, our employees are feeling disrespected and frustrated in the media, [with] comments like, ‘It’s not in the public’s interest to pursue charges.’ From our employees’ perspective, from my perspective, we are the public as well.”

CityNews reached out to Crown Counsel for a response regarding charges not being approved. It provided a statement referring to Vancouver Police Department’s Operation Barcode, a retail crime blitz done earlier this year.

“At the completion of that project, the Vancouver police submitted 148 Reports to Crown Counsel to the BC Prosecution Service for charge assessment. Of those 148 reports 123 were approved to court, two are still under charge assessment and four were returned to police for further investigation.

“The remaining 19 files were either dealt with by an alternative to prosecution or no charges were approved as the assessing Crown concluded the charge assessment standard was not met. The resulting charge approval rate is 83.1 per cent,” Crown Counsel said.

Mahlman says the company loses millions of dollars every year to organized retail theft.

–With files from Martin MacMahon, Liza Yuzda, and The Canadian Press