Concert hall, museum restrict access due to increased security threat

Rising safety concerns have forced a major Exchange District complex to lock most of its exterior doors at all hours, reducing public access points to the Manitoba Museum and Centennial Concert Hall.

The Centennial Centre, which runs the Main Street complex that includes those buildings, told parkade patrons they will need to contact security on an intercom to gain access through exterior doors during business hours.

“There has been a significant increase over the past few months with vandalism, drug use, vagrancy and confrontations that are concerning. For the safety of all, we are putting the security measures in place,” a June 5 memo obtained by the Free Press states.

A tunnel entrance to the parkade will remain open.

“We’ve locked all the exterior doors during regular daytime hours. Our doors will be open for all events and our doors remain open to support the operations of the Manitoba Museum… For general access, the doors will remain closed unless there is an operational need for them to be opened up,” said Robert Olson, chief executive officer of the Centennial Centre.

Olson said security staff are being added at the 750,000-square-foot complex. Manitoba Museum doors will be open during museum operating hours, while concert hall doors will open two hours before each event.

“Over the evening hours, there’s a tremendous amount of drug use in and around our complex and we have a dedicated crew that comes in and cleans up… We are having multiple panes of very expensive windows broken and we replace them as quickly as possible… There’s a lot of public urination and worse in and around the campus,” he said.

In recent days, a staff member was physically threatened in the complex courtyard and one person used multiple spaces inside the building as a washroom, Olson said.

“We feel for the safety of the people that work inside our facility and, particularly, to minimize the damage… we have to basically control those access points,” he said.

Vehicles have been vandalized and a building window is broken about every other week, while encampments regularly pop up at the site’s loading bays, he said.

Officials are considering closing off the outdoor courtyard.

Olson said reducing public access to the facility was not an easy decision.

“(Since it was built in 1968), we’ve tried to keep this facility as accessible to the public as possible. We’re just feeling the pinch of some social issues,” he said.

David Pensato, executive director of the Exchange District BIZ, said the sprawling building has many entrances, which complicates efforts to secure it.

“It is sad and it is really unfortunate. Obviously, we would prefer things to continue to be open but every building owner has to make their own decisions,” said Pensato.

Most security incidents in the Exchange tend to happen overnight. There’s been anecdotal reports about property crime escalating over the past two months, he said.

Frequent defecation in and around the area has also been noticed, Pensato said.

“The only explanation I have for that is that people don’t have access to washrooms. We’re talking about people who are desperate in a variety of different ways,” he said, calling for greater co-ordination of social services.

He sees the challenges as an obstacle to the area’s post-pandemic recovery.

“There’s a positive and a not-so-positive story right now in the Exchange… We’re getting a lot more traffic in the Exchange… but we have these overnight challenges when there’s nobody around,” said Pensato.

In January, some Winnipeg city councillors spoke out about security concerns at the city hall campus, which is across from the concert hall on Main Street. Coun. Sherri Rollins said multiple security incidents, including a smashed external window in her office, stalking incidents and a mailroom threat, led her to deem the city’s security planning “grossly immature.”

While security staff are posted at the entrances to city hall and guests are required to check in, front doors generally remain open during business hours.

Rollins said the city’s newly hired corporate security manager, Wade Carriere, is best suited to answer whether the main city hall doors should be locked more often.

“When it comes to the safety and security and incidents in and around city hall and the additional measures that we need, that I expect from the CAO and the staff,” she said.

Carriere began the job May 27, city officials confirmed. He was not available for an interview on Thursday.

Rollins stressed Winnipeg is not alone as it faces these social issues, with downtowns across Canada also coping with open drug use, public defecation and urination, among other challenges.

Coun. Brian Mayes said the focus on safety at city hall has increased since he joined council in 2011, but he isn’t personally convinced the complex needs to lock its doors more often.

“I don’t speak for anyone but myself, but I don’t think we need any sort of lockdown at city hall. That could change if there’s some violence,” said Mayes.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter

Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.

Every piece of reporting Joyanne produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

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