Restaurant Watch

Restaurant Watch is a public safety initiative, in partnership between the BCRFA, the CRFA and the Vancouver Police Department, to deter individuals known to be associated to or involved in serious and/or violent criminal activities from seeking to or entering participating restaurants in the City of Vancouver.

Objective

1. Public Safety:  To reduce the threat of collateral violence to restaurant patrons by deterring individuals known to be associated to or involved in serious and/or violent criminal activities from frequenting participating restaurants.
   
2. Staff Safety:  To reduce the amount of interaction between restaurant staff and violent individuals known to be associated to or involved in serious and/or violent criminal activities and the associated intimidation, fear, leveraging and harassment such contact brings.
   
3. Deterrence of gang-related violence:  To deter known criminal groups ("gangs") and their associates by making it known that they are unwelcome in and will be removed from participating restaurants.

Definition of Roles

• Restaurant staff will not be responsible for and will not take on the role of investigating and/or confronting violent individuals or their associates within their restaurants.
  
• The Vancouver Police will be responsible for identifying, investigating and determining if an individual or group is a candidate to be ejected by way of Authorization agreement and will do so using all available police intelligence resources.

Authorization Agreement

The Restaurant Watch program relies on a signed Authorization by the owner or designated representative of each participating restaurant.  The Agreement authorizes sworn members of the Vancouver Police department to act on the restaurant's behalf to deny entry to and/or remove any persons they determine are associated to or involved in serious and/or violent criminal activities