Men in Black

Victoria Security Services and the problem with private police

On the streets of downtown Victoria, it’s hard to miss Victoria Security Services. Whether it’s black-uniformed, leather-gloved VSS guards marching shoulder-to-shoulder with a mix of swaggering confidence and authoritarian paranoia on their nightly Douglas Street patrol, or one of the team’s portly, more affable members catching his breath on a Government Street flower planter and counting the hours left in his shift on his cell-phone clock, chances are good that you’ve seen them. And that’s been part of company boss Jason Graff’s plan since day one.

In the two years since announcing its presence as the city’s self-styled “new age pro-active security service,” Victoria Security Services has fast earned a reputation for itself. Or more accurately, it has earned two reputations.

Some business owners who have hired VSS gush about the impact the outfit has had on their corner of the world. Robinson’s Outdoor Store owner Gayle Robinson, for example, has been the firm’s champion since its inception.

“Within 24 hours of hiring Victoria Security Services, Broad Street was given back to us,” writes Robinson in a letter of recommendation posted to the VSS website, urging other downtown businesses to get on board. “We now have a street free of addicts and a 3-minute response time to any phone request . . . Jason Graff is an excellent business person, a highly respected and no-nonsense security expert as well as an entrepreneur who has stepped up in the brink of time to help downtown Victoria.”

But glowing reviews like Robinson’s are being increasingly overshadowed by reports of the company’s employees coming down hard on street kids, buskers and panhandlers in the core, and of them playing police beyond the jurisdiction of the businesses that pay them. Of the many private security companies hoping to capitalize on the perception of downtown decay, none courts controversy quite like VSS.

Stephen Gallard, a former Salvation Army shelter employee with experience working in the security field, has gathered plenty of tales about VSS, through first-hand observation and stories from friends close to the street.

“I used to think that Alarm Guard, who were around here years ago, used to be an absolute collection of questionable elements,” says Gallard. “But Victoria Security Services under Jason Graff is the epitome of the poorest-run, most disorganized group of people that have ever been running around with a patch on their shoulder and some ill-perceived ideas about their authorities.”

So far, positive reports from downtown clients appear to supersede any concerns that government agencies might have about the firm that bills itself as “trained to arrest perpetrators and respond effectively to emergencies”—leaving open the question, who is watching these downtown watchdogs?

A man with a plan

Victoria Security Services was hatched when Graff and a friend sat down a little over two years ago to discuss what private security firms could offer clients beyond what was being provided by outfits like Paladin and the Commissionaires—how to “make it a more proactive element than a reactive element,” in Graff’s words. As their regular pleas to City Hall suggest, many downtown merchants still feel under siege from social issues in the core, ranging from drug dealing to post-bar buffoonery.

“We’re not looking to make a million bucks off of what we do,” says Graff. “It’s a stepping stone, and all my members are looking for a future career in policing. So we look at that as kind of a primary thing, and second, we look to break even and give something back to the community, which I can say without a doubt that we have done in certain areas down there.”

The company certainly won’t be making a million bucks, since its promotional material from 2008 indicates a daily rate of $7.50 for 24-hour security, with a promised 15-plus property checks per day.

According to Graff, his company’s mandate is to respond to “Everything from unwanted persons setting up against the property, busking against properties, a lot of security-related issues that are concerns with the properties—everything from theft to intoxicated persons, people urinating in doorways, mischief, graffiti and other damage to properties. Unfortunately, with the resources the police don’t have, that’s why we exist, because there is a lack of resources, and the police aren’t able to do what they should be doing, in all honesty.”

By some accounts, VSS has succeeded in its mission to “move the problem off the block,” as stated in its sales pitch.

Penny Glennie, assistant manager at the Fort Street Monk Office, effuses in a VSS letter of recommendation, “We have seen a reduction in both shoplifters and panhandlers since hiring Victoria Security Services. If you operate a business in downtown Victoria, we highly recommend them.”

VSS has also found clients outside of businesses looking to protect their investment. Victoria Electronic Music Festival organizer Bruce Beil has used VSS for two years to keep an eye on his annual Centennial Square shindig.

“I had laid out a plan for them, and laid out how I wanted them to deal with particular situations and all of that, and was actually quite pleased. I can only think of one situation where they had to take someone down physically and I feel that they were justified in that,” he says. “They’re very good on my beer garden, which was a major liability issue. Obviously if something goes wrong, it’s me getting sued. So in general, I am quite happy with the company.”

Graff adds that the first-aid training his members possess comes in handy when things get out of control downtown. “We’re first-responders in the sense that if somebody is laying on the ground bleeding, we’ve got that training to do something, to ideally save a life if needed,” he says. “That actually happened on New Year’s Eve where there was a guy that had been stabbed . . . right away we know what’s going on and we’ve got our gear out and we’ve got the guy patched up so that he’d not bleeding all over the place.”

That said, not all businesses appear quite so thrilled with the approach VSS employs. A supervisor with Paladin Security at the downtown Bay Centre told Monday that VSS guards are no longer allowed on the company’s property, owing to a window broken during a botched take-down. Bay Centre general manager Darlene Hollstein did not return Monday’s call by press time to confirm this claim.

Words from the street

It’s folks who look a little rough around the edges that seem to bear the brunt of Victoria Security Service’s “proactive” take on the private security business.

John Lawrence, who panhandles downtown, had several run-ins with Graff while he was homeless.

“They chased me down to Government,” says Lawrence of one occasion. “I set up three times down on Government, just to have [Graff] follow me around to each different spot telling me I’m not allowed to sit down there, I’m not allowed to panhandle, apparently, below Cook and above Wharf, because he thinks that’s all his jurisdiction.”

Lawrence says the guards pick targets then provoke them, inviting an aggressive reaction.

“I’ve been dealing with them for about six months now,” he says. “They found out that I’m friends with another gentleman . . . and ever since then, they’ve been harassing me and I’ve pretty much had enough. They actually had to call the cops on me the last time to deal with me because I wasn’t going to listen to them and I was starting to get angry.”

Quinn McNulty is a busker who plays the late-night shift outside of the Island Savings beside the Strathcona Hotel. McNulty says he’s had a number of hands-on encounters with VSS at that location, as well as others, and that last time, they knocked over his amplifier.

“There’s an easy way and a hard way to do things, and they always seem to take the hard way,” he says. “They are the only ones out there that are acting like the goon squad. There is not another company that acts like they do.”

McNulty wishes the VicPD would look deeper into Graff’s operation.

“A lot of those cops don’t know about Jason and what his scene is,” says McNulty. “They come on and they think, ‘Great, a man in uniform.’ That’s all they see, and I say, ‘If I put a goddamn uniform on, would you show me the same respect?’”

But the cops don’t appear ready to jettison support for the company just yet.

“They’ve been very helpful in regards to providing extra eyes and ears, and being able to provide information to us when there is a crime that happens, or witness information or suspect information,” says VicPD spokesperson Sgt. Grant Hamilton. “They’ve actually assisted in arresting people too, taking them into custody for assaults before we get there. So they do provide a valuable service, and it’s important that we keep a close relationship with them.”

Those moments of glory, says former security guard Stephen Gallard, must be fleeting.

“They pick on people that are at a disadvantage because he knows they can’t fight back,” says Gallard. “If they went after anyone that way who wasn’t a street person, they would be charged with stalking, assault, uttering threats and any number of those things.”

Asked about allegations that his company bullies particular individuals, Graff replied, “All I’ve really got to say to that is that the chances of them complaining because they’re the people that we’re dealing with, and because they’re maybe doing something wrong, might be the largest factor in that.”

Could be, but their complaints aren’t the only issues dogging the company.

Bending and breaking

While the City, local police and the province’s Security Industry and Licensing division appear to tacitly condone Victoria Security Service’s methods, that doesn’t mean the company has escaped the authority’s scrutiny.

Soon after VSS was formed, the Victoria police called Graff in for a meeting to demand changes to the VSS uniform, lest the general public mistake them for a government agency.

“We had patches that had Victoria Security Services, but it had Victoria written across the top of the crest, and we ended up changing our logos to a circular logo,” says Graff. The originals, one would presume, might constitute a violation of Security Services Act regulation 12 (3) which states, “A security worker licensee must not, while engaged in security work . . . wear a uniform that resembles a uniform used by police officers.”

Apparently the VicPD would also prefer that Graff’s employees retire their entirely black uniforms, but on that demand, Graff is holding firm. “[VicPD] requested we change it, but it’s a cost thing and we can’t really afford to change our uniform colour,” he says. “And with the governing agency, they said ‘We approved you for your uniforms, and we stand beside you guys.’”

Besides, says Graff, adopting a paramilitary appearance is part of carrying out their job effectively.

“The idea there is that if you’re walking down the street, and for instance someone is up to no good and they’re tagging a property, or thinking of committing a crime, they see that uniform presence and it deters them right there,” says Graff. “People don’t want to do stupid shit when they’re around a uniform presence, and it’s the absolute truth—especially when they’re looking at a uniform that looks very similar to the police. It deters a lot more than just having the typical black-trouser, white-shirt security guard standing there.”

In addition to police problems with the uniform, VSS has also been disciplined by the security industry and licensing division. In November 2009, Graff was slapped with two fines under Section 20 of the Security Services Act for “Business employ or engage unlicensed individual,” for a total bill of $1,150.

Graff claims the fines were issued because of an administrative error on his part. Two trainees, he says, allowed their 90-day probationary licenses to lapse, and when the Security Industry and Licensing Branch reviewed its records it found them to be working the street, but out of compliance.

“They were going through our records and they came across that, and we admitted it and we got dinged for it, which is understandable, because we were in the wrong,” says Graff. “But since that time we’ve certainly stepped up our hiring process and double-checked our records to make sure that these guys do have licenses and get copies and document that all and have that all.”

However, a former VSS employee, who cannot be named due to an ongoing wage dispute with the company, says using unlicensed guards was par for the course during his time there.

“Very few employees, aside from me, were licensed,” he says. “Jason was very well aware and indeed did hire unlicensed employees promising to get them their probation license. He never did, and then, when he felt he had used them up, he would fire them and rehire new employees and repeat the process.”

And then there is the matter of the Victoria Security Service’s patrol car, which, as recently as January 15, was photographed without any of the markings required under Section 10 (4) of the SSA, and features a push bumper, which police typically use to nudge fleeing vehicles off the road.

Graff says the company had the registrar’s permission to use a ghost car, but now chooses not to. “We used to, and then there was an issue with this, so now we just use marked patrol vehicles.”

The Security Industry and Licensing division is well apprised of VSS’ operations through complaints submitted by members of the public and obtained by Monday through a freedom of information request. Among the complaints on file with the licensing body is one from June 15 that reads in part, “ . . . all the rules he has broken, including unlicensed and untrained guards, using cuffs, patrolling in an unmarked vehicle, and enforcing laws off property he has jurisdiction over.”

Another complaint filed July 15, 2009 reads in part, “I [name redacted] am filing a formal complaint in regards to Victoria Security Services (Jason Graft) for unproper and unjustified questioning. I was moving freely down the street and was stopped by Victoria Security Services and asked to provide my name for what seemed to be no reason. I will be filing a civil court case in regards to this matter as well.”

A separate complaint also filed on July 15, 2009, reads, “He routinely pours people’s alcohol out who are drinking in public, not on properties he has been hired to perform security for, performs ‘arrests’ at places that have not hired his company to provide security, orders people to leave locations he has no right to enforce anything on, and by and large they listen to him because they don’t know any better or don’t want any trouble.”

Confiscating open liquor, if indeed that is part of VSS’s activities, doesn’t fly with the local cops. According to the VicPD’s Lori Beauvais, “Drinking in public is not a crime. It is an offence, which is something found in provincial legislation. If they see someone drinking in a public space, unless they are committing mischief, and there are a whole lot of parameters with that, and unless they’re able to articulate that what they’re seeing in front of them is indeed elements of the offence of mischief, they do not have the provision to confiscate or arrest if they see it happening.”

Another provincial ministry with its eye on VSS is the ministry of employment standards, which told Monday there have been several wage complaints filed against the company in its short life.

Those payroll problems were one of the reasons the Strathcona Hotel severed its contract with VSS, according to Strathcona co-owner Grant Olson.

“They were having some problems paying their staff, and so that becomes a little bit of a problem because we’re obliged to follow any garnishee order,” says Olson. “I didn’t know if it was going to continue on that way, so we just decided to part ways.”

The company’s trouble paying workers may be one reason that VSS presently employs only four guards. A full team, says Graff, is ten.

Currently it’s difficult to gauge how many businesses actually pay Victoria Security Services, since the company’s guards make it a point to rove widely on their “free community patrols.” But amid turbulent economic times and a slow government response finding root of growing social distress, businesses can’t be blamed for wanting to put a pleasant face on their slice of the downtown core. In celebrating Victoria Security Service’s perceived efficiency at “giving the street back to the businesses,” however, it appears accountability is being pushed out with the panhandlers. M

— Special thanks to Attila Szabo for extensive research assistance compiling this story

VSS Hits Home

When Monday sent local freelance photographer Derek Ford out to snap some pictures of VSS guards in action late on a Thursday night, we didn’t anticipate that he would become a character in our story. Nor did Ford expect to discover the truth behind rumours about the VSS brand of diplomacy.

Ford had shot several photos—careful to obscure the face—of a VSS guard in front of Second Slice Pizza when he decided to turn his lens on Jason Graff and another VSS guard exiting the Douglas Street McDonald’s—where VSS operates what Graff calls a “business-use facility” on the second floor—and climbing into their company car. Graff then got out of the vehicle and approached Ford to ask why he was taking pictures of his employees. Ford withheld his affiliation with Monday as Graff explained that he didn’t want Ford taking photos there, citing the “safety and security risk to the staff members at our client location.”

Ford, meanwhile, tried to explain that he was on public land, could point his lens where he pleased and then tried to leave the scene.

“I proceeded to try to go up the street and he stood in my way,” says Ford. “I said, ‘You know, I’d like to go past you,’ and he said, ‘Fine, you can go past me,’ and again he stood in my way and made a comment like, ‘Stop taking our photographs or I’ll grab your camera and delete the pictures myself,’ and I said ‘No, you’re not going to do that.’ Then he said he’d call the police and have them sort it out and I said, ‘By all means, please do.’

As Graff turned to leave, Ford says he continued snapping photos, and that’s when things went haywire.

“He came up to me and put a choke-hold on me,” says Ford. “A little bit of a struggle ensued, and a few other people got involved, saying ‘Hey what are you doing to this guy?’ I attempted to take some photographs while he was choke-holding me, his associate knocked my hat off, Jason released me, pushed me forward . . . his associate spat gum at my head. I turned around and started taking photos and his associate put his hand over the lens and said ‘Take a photo of that,’ swore at me . . . and then they drove off.”

Jason Graff remembers the last part of the story a little differently.

“I didn’t put him in a choke,” he says. “I pushed him away because he got right in my face. I was holding his shoulder guiding him away because he kept coming towards me. He’s invading my personal space, so I have the right to defend myself. It’s a simple fact.”

But why, Monday asked Graff, should it matter if someone takes their picture while they’re out on patrol?

“Our job is a very dangerous job to say the least, and when we question our safety, there’s an issue there and the cops will back us up on that side,” he says. “That definitely trespasses into our safety side of it, personally.”

But in a line of work where “observe and report,” has always been the name of the game, the job is only as dangerous as Graff and his colleagues try to make it.

Know your Rights

A short guide to dealing with security guards

As more and more businesses enlist private firms like Victoria Security Services, it is important for the public to know the limitations of powers possessed by guards under provincial government regulations.

As the phenomenon grew in Vancouver in recent years, the BC Human Rights Coalition published Security and You, a guide to “interacting with security guards that patrol property.” According to that document, the public has the following rights with respect to private security:

• To be judged by their actions, not their appearance;

• To ask why they are being banned from property;

• To see a licensed guards ID and license;

• To know why they are being detained or arrested;

• To keep silent and speak with a lawyer if detained or arrested;

• To report a guard that abuses them, swears at them, or violates their rights.

In addition, here’s a few more helpful hints to remember if you fi nd yourself dealing with private security:

• Security guards, whether licensed or not, have no authority to enforce the Safe Streets Act. This law prohibits panhandling when it causes people to fear for their safety and it prohibits panhandling in certain ‘captive audience locations.’

• Guards have no authority to tell people to move along when on public property and they have no authority to issue tickets in relation to panhandling. Only police can enforce this law.

• Guards cannot hold someone against his/her will unless the person is under arrest.

• If a guard suspects that a crime was committed and wants to ask questions, they have no power to keep the person on the premises.

• A guard can ask a person to leave property and they can ban someone from property if rules are broken. When doing so, guards should be professional and indicate which rule is being broken.