Police in Hess Village

Paid duty police officers will remain in Hamilton’s Hess Village.

A motion to scrap the program has been ammended after the police chief sent a letter urging councillors to keep the program going, saying that rowdy behaviour in Hess Village accounts for more than half of downtown Hamilton’s police calls.

Chief Eric Girt said instead of scraping the program, where bars pay for special duty officers during the summer, he wants a compromise by reducing the number of officers and the cost.

Bars owners will now be paying for 3 constables instead of 4 and they will share the cost of a sergeant.