There’s a new $5-million pool of provincial money being made available to B.C. police for use in fighting non-violent crime like shoplifting.

In the catalogue of crimes that dominate the ongoing public safety debate, shoplifting is one of the less dramatic.

(The Opposition opened a question period in the legislature this week by asking about “tourists being beaten black and blue,” a man who was decapitated, another whose hand was cut off by a machete and a mother punched in the face while holding a baby, among other atrocities.)

But police and an official from one retailer — London Drugs — stressed that shoplifting is having severe consequences in B.C. communities.

Police leaders at the announcement of the community safety and targeted enforcement program (CSTEP) said shoplifting and general public disorder are eroding the sense of safety and impacting local economies.

RCMP Supt. Wendy Mehat, president of the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police, said police are doing all they can “but we recognize that enforcement alone cannot solve the........

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