Beefed up security leads to drop in visitors at Millennium Library

Fewer weapons and less liquor are getting into Winnipeg's Millennium Library, but the number of patrons going through the doors has dropped as well, a city report says.

The data is in a report to the protection, community services and parks committee, which contains information from surveys of library users, meetings with community groups and surveys of staff and outside social agencies about best practices.

The library instituted new security measures earlier this year amid increasing violence and intoxication at the downtown facility.

The report says there were 46 serious incidents at the downtown library in February, but only six in June. The screening procedures, which include bag checks and security guards with hand-held metal detectors, started on Feb. 25.

Serious incidents at the library include assault, harassment, threats, intoxication and verbal abuse.

The report breaks some of the numbers down further.

The total number of incidents tracked from November 2018 to February 2019 was 230. From March to June 2019, the number had dropped to 81 — a 64.8 per cent decline.

Incident report numbers for the first six months of 2019 were compared to the same period for each year since 2013. The results indicated that incident reports declined 24.7 per cent over that period from 2018 to 2019. 

Between the start of screening in February and July 17, library security confiscated 256 items, the report said. Items taken include saw blades, hatchets, knives, box cutters, mallets, hand saws and a crack pipe.  

Calls for emergency services from the police and fire departments have gone down in the five months since the screening program started.

• Armed fights, gang recruitment among incidents that prompted security screening: Winnipeg library
• Most assaults at Millennium Library don't involve weapons, internal records show

The most significant change found in the data is that incidents of intoxication declined 68.8 per cent from 2018 to 2019.

However, the number of library patrons has declined since screenings were put in place.

The report contains a graph showing that January to June attendance in 2019 was 582,159 — a 32 per cent decrease from 854,942 over the same period in 2018.

The report does, however, say two weeks' worth of data is missing from February 2019 due to renovations that resulted in the patron counter going offline.

Changes still needed: report

City bureaucrats have some recommendations for making the library more welcoming but safe at the same time.

Those include:

• Adding staff to the library's community crisis worker team to continue building relationships with people who visit the library and connect them with community resources and social agencies.
• Working with community groups to create a community-led cultural provider program for library users.
• Providing additional non-violent crisis intervention, mental health first aid and substance use awareness training for front-line staff, including an in-house train-the-trainer program.
• Developing a community connections space in the Millennium Library lobby.
• Installing directional gates and sensor panels to streamline the screening process and reduce the need for the handheld scanning.
• Recruiting volunteer community hosts as the "first face" of the library.

There are significant costs associated with the changes.

The Millennium Library should get two more community crisis workers, at a cost of just over $165,000 a year, the report says.

The capital costs of changing the screening process and adding a community connections space to the lobby are estimated at $363,440.

The report also says a further $130,000 will be needed for training and new programming.

The protection, community services and parks committee will review the recommendations of the report next week.