City won't silence honking horns at Kelowna rallies, despite complaints

Some business owners in Kelowna say they are being negatively impacted by weekly anti-vaccine mandate protests downtown, but local leaders say they have no plans to try and prevent the gatherings from happening.

Protests against public health restrictions have occurred almost every weekend in the B.C. Interior city since December 2020, and multiple businesses say the noise and crowds have become worse in recent weeks as people come out to support the protests occurring in Ottawa.

"They put their flashes on, and they just parked and just honked continuously for over three hours," Joel Sellen of Hitz Boutique told CBC News, regarding what he's seen outside his store over the past two weekends. 

"It was so loud, it was insane. We hardly had any customers that day. We lost a lot of business."

The protests entered their third week on Saturday, which saw a small contingent of counter-protesters outside Kelowna City Hall.

Concerns of congestion, harassment

While most protesters gather around city hall, a growing number have been taking their activity to Bernard Ave., downtown Kelowna's main street, filled with tourists and pedestrian traffic.

Skylar Kiekish, who works at the Smokanagan vaporizer shop, says while he doesn't have an issue with the protests, he would prefer they hold their rallies elsewhere.

"[Kelowna] already doesn't have the infrastructure to handle the traffic that we normally have," he said.

"I agree the government hasn't been handling [the pandemic] the best, but we're not the people that they should be taken out on."

While most of the protests are peaceful, Sellen says he witnessed one violent incident during a rally on Jan. 29.

"There were cars blocking the pedestrian crosswalk, and I saw a pedestrian give the driver the finger like, 'Hey! We can't block this,'" he said. "The driver got out of the car — he jumped in front of my shop, and next thing, they're fighting on the street."

One block away, Alicia Neill of Mosaic Books says her customers have been harassed by some of the protesters.

"We've had these people coming in yelling at families, telling kids that their parents are going to die because they've taken the vaccine," she said. "We got pretty heated."

In a statement provided to CBC, Kelowna RCMP Cpl. Tammy Lobb said police have not received any reports of incidents related to protest convoy "that has been rolling through the Okanagan over the past few weekends."

Lobb said there are plans to manage traffic this weekend in anticipation of another rally. She also thanked protesters in Kelowna for being peaceful over the past year, and encouraged anyone who has been harassed or harmed to report the incident to RCMP.

Local MP supports rallies

The protests have also received a boost from Kelowna-Lake Country MP Tracy Gray, who posted photos of herself on Facebook speaking to truck drivers at rallies in Ottawa, including some she said had driven from the Okanagan to be there.

"Many people were simply tired after doing everything the government asked of them, and seeing no change," she wrote.

Gray, who is the Conservative critic for small business recovery and growth, declined CBC's request to speak to her about the impact protests are having on small businesses in her home community.

No plans to prevent protests

The City of Kelowna does have bylaws limiting the amount of noise people can make, but community safety manager Darren Caul said there are no plans for the city to try to enforce it when it comes to the loud honking of horns.

"What's practical isn't having our police in a crowd of a thousand people to try and enforce bylaws," he said. "That could undermine their mission, which is to maintain public safety and public order."

And not every business owner has been upset by the protests. Jade Mackie of Lost Together, a vintage apparel shop, said she found the large crowds gathering "uplifting."

"It's busier [than normal] winters downtown," she said.