The mayor of Kelowna has penned a letter on behalf of city council to the federal Ministry of Health requesting that the 2027 renewal of a downtown supervised consumption site be denied.

Mayor Tom Dyas shared the letter on social media on Tuesday, Sept. 1, calling for the supervised consumption site at Outreach Urban Health to be shut down by Health Canada.

Outreach Urban Health, located at 1649 Pandosy Street, provides safe monitoring and medical intervention by trained staff during substance use. This site, and others like it within Interior Health, also offers harm reduction, health care and treatment referrals to clients.

The letter, dated Aug. 26, claims the site has become a serious safety concern.

“The city, RCMP and public safety partners continue to respond to serious and recurring incidents near the site, including gang activity, weapons-related assaults, intimate partner violence, drug trafficking, fencing of stolen property, arson, overdoses and other medical emergencies.”

Since the site opened in 2021, the letter states the RCMP received 3,466 calls for service to the site or the immediate surrounding area, the Kelowna Fire Department responded to 371 medical calls and 24 outdoor fire calls and bylaw services responded to 420 incidents beyond routine daily interventions.

Dyas wrote in the letter that council did not “arrive at this position lightly,” understanding the need for health services for “people experiencing problematic substance use,” however, the crime and safety concerns related to the site have become too high.

Pointing to a 2023 Downtown Kelowna Association survey, 89 per cent of respondents, representing 133 businesses, reported Outreach Urban Health as having a “bad” or “very bad” impact on the downtown.

Dyas concludes the letter by stating the challenges faced surrounding this site “reinforce Kelowna’s ongoing request to the Province of B.C. for a regional mandatory care facility within the Okanagan that meets the scale of need for individuals experiencing severe addiction, mental health, and acquired brain injury challenges who cannot seek or sustain treatment independently.”

On Aug. 25, the BC Coroners Service released its report on toxic drug deaths, where it stated 17 more deaths in the Okanagan in June. The report showed that the Okanagan continued to make up the majority of toxic drug deaths in Interior Health (IH), with a total of 31 recorded in communities across the health authority.

So far this year, IH as a whole has seen a total of 132 deaths in its communities, with 70 in the Okanagan.

The majority of toxic drug deaths took place in Kelowna, which has seen 37 deaths this year, followed by 17 in Kamloops, 11 in Vernon and six in Penticton. Deaths in other communities are not listed separately.

Black Press Media has reached out to Interior Health for comment on the letter from Kelowna City Council.