Saskatoon tightens bear spray regulations with changes to business license bylaw

WATCH: Bear spray incidents have more than doubled in recent years, with a 500 per cent increase in youth-related incidents since 2021.

The City of Saskatoon is working to curb the growing concern of bear spray incidents.

On Wednesday, city council approved changes to the business license bylaw regarding the use of bear spray.

“What the city can do is a bylaw,” said Cynthia Block, mayor of Saskatoon. “And what this will do is have some requirements and some ability to follow when bear spray is used illegally, where it was purchased, who was the purchaser to be able to hold people accountable.”

Those changes include a mandatory buyer registry with the buyer’s name address, phone number, date of birth, two pieces of ID, document product details and details about the employee who sold the product.

It also restricts buyers and sellers to be 18 years or older, and sales to anyone who fails to properly identify themselves is prohibited.

The product must be stored out of view, and only unmodified, clearly labeled products can be sold.

Lastly, it grants the city the ability to enforce fines, suspension or loss of license for non-compliant businesses.

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Block says the idea came from the Saskatoon Police Service.

“Based on the numbers that we are seeing, I don’t know that they consulted directly with businesses,” she said. “And no businesses came directly to council to speak to it at all. But it would be a surprise to me based on what we’re seeing in our city if this isn’t one that we can all agree on.”

The city says bear spray incidents have more than doubled in recent years with a 500 per cent increase among youth since 2021.

Downtown Saskatoon’s business improvement district says businesses and customers have noticed the rise in incidents in the city.

“We have received many stories and incidents, reports from businesses such as retail, restaurant, as well as in the transit mall area that were reported to certain city councillors and also to police,” said Shawna Nelson, executive director of Downtown Saskatoon.

She adds that it’s early, but it’s a good start.

“And then from there, just see where the impact is and what are the other changes that may need to be made,” said Nelson.

“Taking a look at which retailers sell bear spray and does it make sense for this retailer to sell it? I mean, there’s not a lot of bears in Saskatoon. So, you know, when I look at that, it’s like which retailer should be actually selling it and it should be coming from a credible source.”

Block says while the city can enforce these bylaws, it won’t do much without the province following suit.

“Municipalities are on the front lines of this bear spray issue, but we don’t have all of the tools to solve it alone,” she said. “That’s why we are grateful that the province has legislation that it is also working on to strengthen what they can do to support the unlawful use of bear spray in our city.”

The city says the bylaw took effect July 30.