By Curtis Galbraith

Parkside Project leads to 100 arrest warrants

Jun 30, 2018 | 7:00 AM

A police effort to concentrate on Grande Prairie’s Parkside Inn has led to more than 100 arrest warrants.
 
Constable Brennan Gobel with the RCMP Crime Reduction Unit says they decided to do extra patrols as part of what they call the Parkside Project.
 
“Because we identified that we were getting a lot of calls for service at that location, completely disproportional to all the other hotels in the city. We identified that that’s something we need to go look at, so we did an over-presence. We were there around the clock, talking to as many people as we could, business owners and employees in the area.”
 
Gobel says a lot of the criminal activity in that area involved drugs.
 
“There were drug investigations that we did and, after the fact, we’ve since actually executed a search warrant at the Parkside for drug trafficking. The arrest warrants that we executed, they’re all types and all kinds, people failing to abide by their conditions or go to court. In one case, we did arrest a person and charged them for having a firearm and breaching their conditions.”
 
Gobel says one of two people wanted in connection with a car-jacking was also located at the Parkside Inn.