Another business in the city’s downtown core has experienced a robbery.

This time, Tags Food and Gas was hit at 6 a.m. Wednesday. The crime has led the store’s owner to do some serious reflecting on the problems plaguing his store. 

The criminal took 15 cartons of cigarettes, which were worth about $3,000, and $500 in cash, said Pret Sidhu. 

“We’re just having a tough time when we’re giving the information to the RCMP, and it just seems there’s no follow-up,” Sidhu told The Yukon Star on Wednesday afternoon.

According to Sidhu, there has been an increase in petty crimes that have gone on in his Fourth Avenue business.

Sidhu said he wanted to bring this problem up to all the agencies that are supposed to be fighting the downtown crime problems.

“I’m trying to bring this to our territorial leaders and I’m talking to our federal MP, to be able to say we have a problem,” he told the Star. 

What has really disappointed him is that, in his opinion, nothing has been done. If community leaders would take responsibility, he believes, residents wouldn’t have to endure these problems. 

“What’s happening with the petty crime is that people are coming and stealing, and then they’re going and then they know that nothing happens, so they continue doing it. And this is where the problem is,” Sidhu said. 

Some of the incidents that have happened at his store were committed by the same young people, he said. He   has tried to contact their parents – who have not always been helpful.

“Their parents, five to six times with each incident, they’ve told me to phone the RCMP,” said Sidhu. 

“So that’s one of the things where we as human beings aren’t holding people up to a certain standard. What’s happening with the petty crime is that people are coming and stealing, and then they’re going, and then they know that nothing happens, so they continue doing it.”   

Sidhu described one of the other incidents that happened to him. He called it “amazing,” and he believes the RCMP could have done better. 

“One night, he (the individual) chased me around my business where I’m running for my life and everything. I called the RCMP, but nothing’s been done. Then, in the beginning of July, he came and stole the thing,” he said, without specifying the item. 

He said he tried to phone the RCMP three or four times and they didn’t show up. Previously, the RCMP had told him they cannot do anything with the individual as he has a mental illness. 

“It’s giving me the impression that this is the third one that just happened recently,” he said about another incident. “A gentleman came in, took two (packs of) cigarettes. My staff went out to get the cigarettes back, but they got into a tussle and started fighting and everything.”

Sidhu said he wanted to share his story to serve as a wake-up call to the community and all levels of government. Though shelters have been set up, and those are good things to have, he said, finding the root of the crime problem is the key. 

“Sooner or later, it’s going to take me, my life, or somebody else’s life to get this attention,” Sidhu said.

He doesn’t want sympathy, but is asking people to unite to help each other out. 

At the time he spoke to the Star, Sidhu was still waiting for the RCMP to get back to him with other incidents that have occurred at the store in recent days. 

The Star contacted Whitehorse RCMP for information about the crime problems, but did not receive a response.