Friday, busy enough for 1. Not too busy, not too slow.
A single girl, mid 30's, pretty-ish, ballcap, tall, slim, sitting on her own eating a burger and side salad and playing "Candy Crush" on her computer. Draft beer.
She seems normal enough, which should be a flag, given the area....
I have a table of Chinese tourists, they're asking me questions about the map, where the ferry goes, etc, etc. And I'm explaining it to them and I look up and she's gone, laptop, sweater, everything.
Go outside - she's running away towards the ferry traffic - I yell out after her if she's going to pay - she turns back hastily and says "I'm coming back...."
She isn't and I'm pissed. It's not like I can run after or tackle her, I have other tables, this annoys me greatly.
Needless to say she doesn't come back. Bill, $35.00, I get to pay.
One of the local homeless people comes in to give me her plate # - "In case she doesn't come back", he saw me running after her. It pays to be on good terms with the locals.
Anyways, what can you do? The cops don't care. I saw this in Vancouver, where the homeless and junkies were perpetually popping into corner shops, cafe's, helping themselves to whatever they could lay their hands on. Only the grocery stores, with private security and more guards than clerks, had any chance of stopping it.
It used to be that the police were there to prevent crime. Any crime. Now, now it's just the high-end boutiques, the rest of the shops - despite paying their taxes, are on their own. Raise prices. Hire security. Deal with it. The social contract, your tax dollars at work, doing nothing.
SO this pisses me off on a number of levels, you have the who (license plate), she's not homeless or a junkie, merely exploiting the Crown's unwillingness to prosecute 'trivial' crimes.
But I'm in luck. Well, as in luck as you can get in these fucked-up dystopian times.
Sunday, at the spoken word event in Lakeside Park, I get a text from work...
"What did you say her license plate number was...?"
I send it on. I get a picture of the plate in return. She's in the restaurant, playing "Candy Crush". And sure enough, she does a runner. Only this time they've boxed her in with their cars while they call the police. She's done it here, she's done it elsewhere...
The police show up, after 3 hours, reluctantly take her info, talk to her. "She's down on her luck..." they tell the restaurant, despite her having a full pack of smokes, new Ford Focus, I-Phone, they've logged her details, no charges, just a talking to.
This is bullshit. She's made her way from the coast to here on this entire business model, that small crimes aren't worth pursuing, and were you to suggest perhaps lowering her tires, leaving a "Kootenay Welcome" on her windshield, why, you'd be a criminal! Yet she's allowed to commit a hundred, thousand or more such "minor" offenses, 99.9% of which will go unreported, in her travels across BC/Canada.
She's a pretty girl, down on her luck...
And justice, now, in Canada, it's all self-serve. Don't trust or rely on the police, they are there for the rich, for those with a lawyer, don't waste your time. If you see a cop, shoot first and ask questions later.
So it begins.