The ThunderBlogs

Theft of items from vehicles was the biggest crime issue in Kitsilano from Sept.15 to 21.

In that week, Kitsilano saw only a few crimes. There was one residential break and enter, two commercial break-ins, six thefts from cars – two of which took place in the same area – and no stolen vehicles.

The neighbourhood of Kitsilano belongs to district four in the Vancouver Police Department’s breakdown of the City of Vancouver.

The city is divided up into four policing districts.

The smallest is district one, which includes the central business district, or downtown core, Stanley Park and the West End.

District two is slightly bigger and centres primarily on the downtown east side, including Strathcona, Grandview Woodlands and Hastings Sunrise.

District three is larger still and encompasses Mount Pleasant, Kensington-Cedar Cottage, Renfrew-Collingwood, Sunset, Victoria-Fraserview and Killarny.

Kitsilano belongs to the fourth and largest district. It includes Fairview, Riley Park, Oakridge, Marpole, Kerrisdale, Musqueam, South Cambie, Shaughnessy, Arbutus Ridge, Dunbar-Southlands, West Point Grey and Kitsilano.

There’s a reason the district Kitsilano lies in is bigger than the others.

“It’s actually the quietest district in the city,” said Const. Mick Ord, “the largest, but the quietest.”

Ord has been patrolling in district four for four years now. He’s been an officer for 23 years, in Vancouver for seven. Before moving to the west coast, Ord was a cop in England.

He said that Kitsilano’s biggest crime issue is typically property crime. This is due largely, he said, to the fact that district four is primarily a residential area.

Last month, police in Kitsilano tracked down a suspect who had broken into several businesses. The suspect threw a brick through the windows of 10 different restaurants and stole bottles of liquor from inside. The majority of the establishments targeted were on Broadway Avenue, one of Kitsilano’s two major streets.

The most recent available statistics breaking down crime in the four different districts are for July 2010.

Compared with July 2009, District four, which includes Kitsilano, had a six per cent increase in violent crime, a drop of more than eight per cent in property crime and a 15 per cent increase in other crime. In total, crime went down over eight per cent from July 2009 to July 2010.

Citywide, crime dropped nearly seven per cent in the July comparisons from last year to this year.