RCMP officers responded to 166 calls in the 24-hour period combining New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. (Josh Ryan/battlefordsNOW)

By battlefordsNOW Staff

Frequent calls

Battlefords RCMP busy on New Year’s Eve

Jan 4, 2021 | 3:56 PM

The 24-hour period over New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day kept RCMP officers quite busy in the Battlefords.

The detachment received 166 calls during those 24 hours, ranging from a variety of concerns, including drunk drivers, COVID-19 gathering restrictions and more.

Sgt. Jason Teniuk said there were six calls related to drinking and driving, with around 12 to 14 calls of poor driving, and several resulted in charges being laid or are still under investigation. The overall volume for the day is a higher number than normal, he said.

“It was a pretty steady New Year for us, par for the course when looking back at other years,” Teniuk said. “Compared to a normal day, the average is around 60 calls normally, so this is pretty steady, but some of them aren’t really serious calls.”

RCMP members were busy with stopping erratic vehicles throughout the day and night. There were 17 to 20 tickets written during the evening, though a number of them were situations where members had already been called to check on driving behaviour. Teniuk said the Central Traffic Unit was also in town, which contributed to increased vehicle checks and tickets issued.

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“I would hazard a guess that several hundreds of vehicles were stopped that night,” he said. “There would have been a pretty good police presence in the area and that would have deterred any inkling to drive when perhaps people shouldn’t have.”

Concerns about breaking up large gatherings did not come to fruition. Only five calls related to gatherings exceeding the size limit mandated by the province’s COVID-19 restrictions came through and no charges were laid by officers attending the calls. Teniuk said this was a huge positive.

“That’s encouraging to me,” he said. “I don’t know that other jurisdictions were like that, but to me, it shows that there were a lot of people taking things seriously here.”

While the holiday period is over, Teniuk said residents will have to continue to follow guidelines until they hear from the province.

“We just have to get through this the best we can, without getting people sick.”

—

josh.ryan@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JoshRyanSports