Edmonton city council is discussing what it would take to ban knives from being sold in convenience stores.
A key issue during Monday’s community and public services committee was wading through the potential legal ramifications of defining what a knife is and whether some businesses owners may try to find loopholes to be able to sell knives.
The bylaw amendments would not apply to the sale of “basic cutlery.”
“I’d be interested in sort of redefining the definition of knife, rather than defining basic cutlery,” said Coun. Jo-Anne Wright during Monday’s meeting.
Council previously voted to create a new convenience store business licence category, but implementing the changes can only happen when a licence is up for renewal. Full implementation of the bylaw could take years.
Amendments to the bylaw were heard in Monday’s meeting.
The bylaw also sets out new $2,000 fines if knives are sold at a convenience store.
The working definition of knife put forward as an amendment is: “a tool composed of at least one blade fastened to a handle, where the blade may be fixed to the handle, or may open through a deployment mechanism, including automatically by gravity or centrifugal force or by hand pressure applied to any part of the tool.”
“To me, it’s very cut and dry when you look at the definition of knife, and so I wonder if we’re also overthinking this a little bit,” Coun. Erin Rutherford said during the meeting.
“We knew that it was problematic and challenging in and of itself, both coming up with a definition of convenience store and coming up with a definition of knife.”
The matter of knives being readily sold in convenience stores was brought into the spotlight last April after community members from the central neighbourhood of Alberta Avenue came forward with their safety concerns about how easy it was to purchase and how they could be used.
Edmonton police seized 79 prohibited weapons and illicit tobacco from a central Edmonton convenience store in December, according to a news release on Monday.
On Dec. 17, 2024, EPS’ Community Safety Teams, previously known as Healthy Streets Operations Centre, executed a search warrant at a convenience store located at 97th Street and 107th Avenue that was known to be selling prohibited knives and contraband cigarettes.
There were 71 prohibited knives seized, which included a variety of butterfly and spring-assisted knives.
In addition, eight prohibited brass knuckles with spring-assisted knives concealed within, known as “trench knives” were found.
In a statement to CBC, EPS noted that from Jan. 1 to Sep. 30, 2024 there were 764 citywide “knife incidents.”
In that same time period, 2022 saw 720 incidents and 2023 saw 741.
Councillors and legal representatives for the city looked at how the bylaw could play out in the courts.
An example situation presented was if an enforcement officer gave a ticket for a knife being sold, a store owner would be expected to go the court if they want to contest the ticket.
The determination of whether an item is a knife would then be at the discretion of the courts.
Council passed a motion on Monday to have future bylaw amendments be brought forward for further discussions.
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