Peachfest keeps getting cheaper to police, says Penticton top cop

PENTICTON – Peachfest is costing city taxpayers less money in policing costs as the event becomes more family friendly.

Penticton RCMP detachment commander Ted De Jager said at a press conference today, Aug. 15, the RCMP has been reacting to a shift in behaviour at the five-day event that has resulted in lowered presence of police.

“We’ve noticed that trend for quite some time. Even three years ago, we put a lot of members on. Last summer we changed it so we had a lot of members on call. We did have extra members on overtime and doing patrols, but we changed them to on call, which is a lot less expensive,” De Jager said.

“This year we reduced the amount of overtime members, and we had very little issues,” he said.

Most of the infractions involved cases where an individual had too much to drink, he said.

“Most people were generally well behaved,” he said.

The detachment’s experience with the August long weekend was similar, De Jager said.

“Again, it was problems with alcohol. Impaired driving is still an issue. We understand it’s a tourist town and a tourist region, but people still need to be responsible, especially when they are on vacation, because that’s a pretty bummer vacation if you get your car impounded for 90 days,” he said.

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