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Edmonton city council is looking at potential new rules for businesses selling legal knives in hopes of clamping down on violence in the city.
City councillors on Monday reviewed four options after business and community groups lobbied for changes earlier this year. Edmonton could ban sales at convenience stores, ban sales to minors and demand all stores selling knives to keep them locked up, ramp up enforcement against individual wayward businesses using existing rules, or spend more time advocating to the provincial and federal governments to fund prevention efforts to keep youth and vulnerable people away from crime along with stronger federal knife restrictions.
The committee opted not to make a decision Monday so that all members of council can weigh in at the next city council meeting Oct. 2.
Before deferring a vote, Ward Métis Coun. Ashley Salvador motioned for the first and fourth options — a new business licence category for convenience stores, and advocacy to the provincial and federal governments. This could lead to Edmonton’s estimated 500 to 600 convenience stores being banned outright from selling all knives — or knives that are not cutlery — to anyone, or to minors, or to keep knives locked up. Anyone under 25 could be required to show ID to buy a knife at a convenience store.
Salvador said this approach directly addresses concerns she’s heard about easy access to knives. It also gives the police another enforcement option — something the Edmonton Police Service requested.
“When it comes to making the city safer and enabling some enforcement action around this particular issue, I think it does that,” she said. “This is by no means a silver bullet or solution to a lot of the other challenges that we’re seeing here. And ultimately other orders of government have better tools and stronger tools than we do here locally at the municipality.
“That being said, I think moving forward with bylaw amendments at this time adds one more tool to our toolbox.”
Ward O-day’min Coun. Anne Stevenson called it “a workable and exciting solution.”
No funding was tied to the motion. City staff estimated it would cost $940,000 to implement over two years. Without the funding, council heard this could mean the city wouldn’t be able to do the kind of education and outreach necessary to make the kind of impact envisioned. Enforcement would be driven by complaints instead of having to do proactive outreach and education to make sure convenience stores are applying for the right business licence and following the rules.
It could also slow applications for all other business licences with resources directed to this work.
Ward Anirniq Coun. Erin Rutherford moved to requisition the item to council saying this could have impacts on the entire city.
“When I think about our business licensing slow-down, I think that those are things all of council should weigh in on in terms of even if administration should do the work to make this amendment.”
Estrada said several Alberta Avenue businesses have already pulled knives from their shelves after the business association spoke told them about problems of knife violence.
“Don’t do it for us, do it with us or empower us to do it on our own,” he said. “You can only spend so much dollars on enforcement and it’s not going to work because you’re chasing after the fact. When you empower people to look after themselves in their communities, you don’t have to spend (millions) on policy.”
Edmonton city council voted to ban sales of bear spray to minors in July.
‘Big number’
There were 532 “knife-related events” from January 2022 to February 2024 in the area patrolled by Edmonton Police Service (EPS) in the Downtown branch. Violent crimes or crimes involving weapons increased last year around 118 Avenue but numbers dropped off somewhat from January to April 2024 on 118 Avenue between 104 Street and 78 Street.
Staff Sgt. Mike Keefe, with the EPS downtown division, told reporters the police don’t have a preference for the different options but they want to respond to the community’s concerns and about what they’re seeing.
He said the ease of access to knives can cause a problem but it doesn’t mean everyone buying them is using them for criminal reasons.
“We had 532 in Downtown that we were aware of that is recorded. It’s the volume of knife violence that is occurring. It is a big number,” he told Postmedia.
“I think violence in general is a serious problem. And then when you throw in a weapon, especially a knife that can do so much damage, we just want to limit the people that shouldn’t be having them and use them for a bad purpose, and not take that away from the people that use a knife in everyday life.”
He said having more resources for city bylaw officers to enforce these rules would help the municipality take a proactive role, while the police will primarily be reactive.
