Bar Watch, a
dubious program that allows cops to arbitrarily harass people and chase them
out of bars and restaurants—deeming them inadmissible patrons because a cop
does not like their look—is an instrument of racial and class profiling,
straight no chaser. It adds more power to the discretion that police already
have to target people on the basis of superficial characteristics, stereotypes
and prejudices—on the basis of an officer’s assumptions about someone’s
appearance.
Cops actually
tell students in classrooms in Surrey that one of the things they look for is
Crooks and Castles gear. Seriously. This is the level that this nonsense is carried
out at. And cops and politicians buy it.
Sadly, the City
of Surrey has fallen hook, line, and sinker for this scam of targeted policing
initiating its own Inadmissible Patrons Program on December 6, 2018. The program
is a partnership of Surrey RCMP, the City of Surrey and BC Restaurant and Food
Services Association. It makes police private security for businesses that want
to manage their customers.
The RCMP are
pretty straightforward about the flimsy basis for targeting someone (“lifestyle”)
and the power it will give individual officers:
“An
inadmissible patron is defined as a person whose lifestyle, associations and/or
activities pose a risk to public safety, either directly or from third parties.
This includes people who are involved with or associated to organized crime,
gangs, and the drug trade. Police officers will assess each situation and
individual separately.”
Surrey mayor
Doug McCallum blustered meaninglessly in an RCMP press release:
“The
Inadmissible Patrons Program will not only identify gang members and
individuals associated with violent crime, but the program will also allow for
police to remove them immediately from the premises. As seen in other
jurisdictions, this program will make it tough for criminals to do business in
our city.”
Of course,
because gang members would have nowhere else possibly to meet if not in a
specific bar or restaurant. And they would not have their own regular place
where ownership is not friendly to them. OK.
Bar Watch does
nothing to stop gang activity—its ostensible purpose. It does give police and
bar and restaurant owners a means to manage clientele (something that can be
put to use in, say, gentrifying). It does make it easier for cops to label and
stigmatize people and bring them within reach of the criminal justice system—to
make them “known to police” and therefore vulnerable to further police action.
Given that
police maintain structures of racialized and social class inequalities, Bar Watch
is carried out along those lines reinforces those structures. All the while
giving cops more control over day to day life in our communities and yet
another claim on more public resources (and cop pay)—while making more members of
our community subject to marginalization and criminalization on a cop’s whim.
These concerns have been raised in other jurisdictions where Bar Watch programs
have been implemented.
In committing
to Bar Watch the City of Surrey is openly committing to—publicly endorsing—racial
and class profiling.
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