By Kendall Worth!
After posting a couple of recent blogs about private security – here and here – including an open letter to private security firms from which I received no official answers, someone contacted me via Social Media but asked me not to name him publicly or say what building he worked in. However, he did report that he is employed by ICS – a security firm. ICS Security is one of many private security firms here in Halifax that employ private guards to walk around public places like the library, but also malls and other perceived as public, but actually private, places. They are public in that anyone can enter, but privately owned – like malls and stores, including grocery stores
I have often written about security issues, and he commented on two other articles – one about body language, and fidgeting etc in public places and one about harassment by police and security. His question while chatting on social media: Kendall, is there a possibility that the shopping mall or building these people were visiting at the time has a No loitering Policy? Maybe what the Security Guards really were doing was enforcing the “No loitering Policies” in places, when people were approached?
This guard told me that he has on at least 3 occasions been enforcing “no loitering” policies at work and he ended up having aggressive verbal behaviour, and even physical harm directed toward him. He told me, “I do understand that welfare is not enough to live on and that people often have their mental health issues for life. But the thing is, if someone is standing somewhere where they have no business being, or for a prolong period of time – I do not care who that person is, what mental health issues they may have, or where their income to pay rent and bills comes from -- It is my job to approach them and tell them to get moving. On all three of these occasions when verbal and physical agression was directed toward me as a result of a policy I am paid to enforce, the police ended up getting called and they were moved out by force and fined for trespassing.
What I am trying to get across,” he said, “is that if the people who are getting what they perceive as harassment were in violation of a “no loitering policy”, then the security guards had the authority to approach them and ask them to move along. When I enforce the no loitering policy I am paid to enforce, I am not doing this to discriminate against any mental illness/mental health issues the person may have.”
However, I am not sure I agree that they were “loitering” How would he know? He is assuming based on appearance that they “have no business or reason to be there"? So I set out to ask – what is loitering, and what about these “no loitering” policies?
I found "loitering" is just hanging around somewhere where you have no purpose.
Dictionary definitions include: 1. the act of lingering aimlessly or as if aimlessly in or about a place
2. Loitering occurs when a person remains in a public or private place for a prolonged period of time without an obvious purpose. Loitering laws are most often created by the local government and can vary...
Halifax, according to 311, however, has no loitering or anti-vagrancy by-law. There is no NS legislation about loitering. But - places like Scotia Square – every mall in fact - are privately owned and they can do as they like.
It is likely that, at places like the public library, you would have to be causing a disturbance, not just hanging around, but Scotia Square can just move you along because they own the place. They just cannot discriminate, based on protected charateristics. But the Human Rights Act includes protection for Physical disability, Mental disability and Source of income, among other things - so maybe there is a case to be made in some circumstances that security IS discriminating on those bases?
Basically there is no law or by-law against loitering that I can find. Some places do post “no loitering signs” but you know well dressed people who look prosperous are unlikely to ever be harassed for loitering – they are clearly waiting for someone… (or guards more likely to think that) Do any of those no-loitering signs have a bylaw number on them? If not then it is just something an owner/controller of a property can say... and they have a right to... in law. NS "Protection of property act" just gives whoever is in control of a property the right to make people leave the property. Does not appear that they need a reason, although in a "public" place, like a mall, I suspect that they cannot "discriminate" around "protected characteristics” in the Human Rights Act....
Remaining
on premises after request to leave
4 Every person who, without legal justification, whether conferred by an enactment or otherwise, remains on premises after being directed to leave by the occupier of the premises or a person authorized by the occupier is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than five hundred dollars. R.S., c. 363, s. 4.
Only reference to loitering in the criminal code has to do with "hanging around" a private residence without a purpose, and trespassing as the police point out below.
Section 177 of the Criminal Code addresses the crime of trespassing at night From 9 pm. to 6 am., stating it is illegal to loiter or prowl at night near the home of another person. The purpose of any trespass legislation is to give landowners greater control over their property.
On the Halifax.ca website the Halifax Police include this:
Criminal
Code – 175 (1)
Everyone
who:
a public place,
(i) by fighting, screaming, shouting, swearing, singing or
using insulting or obscene language,
(ii) by being drunk, or
(iii) by impeding or molesting other persons,
(b) openly exposes or exhibits an indecent exhibition in a public place
(c) loiters in a public place and in any way obstructs person who are in that place, is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
As explained in my January 28, 2023 BLOG post “They cannot get all their needs met in a food bank as many seem to think. They need access to special diet food, to fill prescriptions at pharmacies, just to get a “treat’ once in a while. When income assistance recipients, especially those with mental health issues, get approached by your security officers, they feel like they are being treated like they have no right to be in that place. Everyone, including the poor, have to visit places like malls, groceries stores and public building to do things including: dealing with their bank, paying bills, and paying their rent. Poor and homeless people are getting annoyed and frustrated about getting approached by Security and harassed”.
So as part of the Information collected for this story I got in touch with everyone I ever Interviewed about harassment by security and police for inappropriate body language, and asked if they could have been in violation of a “NO loitering Policy” in the location when they were approached. They all answered this question by saying no. They all strongly disagreed with the possibility that they were perceived as loitering, and that word was not used when approached by security. They had business being where they were when approached by Security and were doing what they had to do.
So no they were not “loitering” when approached!
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