As conversations around safe needle disposal in Terrace continue at city hall, a local daycare owner says she would like to hear harm reduction strategies and mobile pick up options discussed.
“I would like to see a safe-injection site for sure. I would like to see a phone number you can call at any time to be able to come and pick up needles,” said Jennifer Maillet, owner of Willow Creek daycare.
“Lots of people are uncomfortable picking up needles, and therefore they don’t, and leave others at risk, predominately children or a vulnerable population. I personally don’t have a problem picking up a dirty needle, but that’s my background, I’m trained to do that.”
In June, the city decided to start recording drug paraphernalia clean-up calls and authorized the Leisure Services Department to conduct morning patrols and safety sweeps of playgrounds, ball fields and parking lots after discarded needles were found by residents and tourists. Since June 13, there have more than 20 official and unofficial reports of drug paraphernalia, according to the city.
In the Aug. 1 minutes of a taskforce established to find a solution to the problem, the city and RCMP identified several potential “hot-spots” for drug paraphernalia clean-up calls, listing the downtown core, the Terrace Pentecostal Assembly church and Willow Creek daycare as locations. However, the city said these locations were only mentioned as markers to identify the surrounding areas.
“The reference to the Pentecostal Church and Willow Creek Daycare were only mentioned as the nearest geographical markers to where drug paraphernalia were found, and the church and daycare are safe for ongoing use. We sincerely apologize for any concern this may have caused,” the spokesperson wrote in a message to the Terrace Standard.
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Maillet said the daycare has been cleaning up drug paraphernalia found at the back of its property, primarily in places where there is privacy, away from playgrounds or other locations where children are. She said the issue has gotten “a lot better” in the past month compared to earlier this year.
“There were several months where we have been facing a huge issue, and we’re finding several dirty needles primarily in the back of the daycare, not where the children play,” she said. “It’s not like we’re finding them in the schoolyards, we’re finding them in corners of buildings where people have tucked away to use them.”
She said needles are picked up by management staff, put inside the centre’s sharps container and disposed of at a local pharmacy. The facility is also working with Coast Mountain School District maintenance, she said, and has reached out to Northern Health for support as well.
“Willow Creek Childcare takes this matter seriously. We’ve increased staff, we’ve increased safety precautions and we have no concern that children at our centre are at risk at any time.”
“Our concern is when we’re not here, weekends, nights, that there is a danger for the community. The city needs to address this as a community to find safer solutions for the children,” Maillet said.
The Terrace Pentecostal Assembly Church said it has found no evidence of needles around the property and declined to comment further at this time.
brittany@terracestandard.com
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