Business Block Watch Pilot Project Seeks Expansion
From Grassroots Action to Provincial Advocacy: Cranbrook’s Business Block Watch Reaches UBCM
A locally driven response to business concerns is gaining momentum — demonstrating what can happen when businesses, community partners, local government and the Chamber work together.
The Cranbrook Chamber of Commerce is pleased to share an important milestone for the Cranbrook Business Block Watch Pilot Project: an initiative that began at the grassroots level, in direct response to concerns from local businesses, was presented by the City of Cranbrook to the Province of British Columbia at the 2026 Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) convention.
This is a story about what can happen when our members identify a need and people come together quickly to find a practical response.
It is also a story about the unfair burden being imposed on businesses, who have been left to grapple face-to-face with societal failings.
It Started with Businesses Speaking Up
The roots of this work are straightforward: our members told us that crime was affecting the conditions in which they do business.
From those conversations came action.
Businesses from Cranbrook’s industrial area came together with the Chamber and the Community Policing Liaison, with Cranbrook Chamber member Canadian Rockies Landscape becoming an important leader in helping move a Business Block Watch concept forward.
What began as a local conversation became a grassroots, business-led pilot designed to strengthen communication between neighbouring businesses, increase awareness of suspicious activity, share practical prevention information and improve connections between businesses and the RCMP.
The Chamber launched its Crime Impacts Survey to better understand those experiences and build evidence that could inform advocacy and support future applications for crime-mitigation funding. The survey asked businesses about the impacts they were experiencing, the strategies they had already deployed and where additional support was needed.
Today, the pilot has moved from planning into active operation. Participating businesses have a contact network, shared guidance and WhatsApp communication channels that allow timely safety information to be shared.
The Chamber works for its members — and that means being ready to respond
The progress of Business Block Watch illustrates an important part of the Chamber’s role.
When our members identify an emerging challenge to doing business in Cranbrook, we want to be able to respond quickly — to listen, convene the right people, gather information and help turn an idea into action.
Not every community challenge can be solved by one organization. Increasingly, the Chamber is prioritizing collaborative approaches to issues that affect the conditions of doing business. Our role is to bring the business perspective to the table while working constructively with the organizations, governments and community partners that each hold part of the solution.
The Business Block Watch pilot is an example of that approach in practice. The program brings together participating businesses, local program leaders, the Chamber, RCMP and the City of Cranbrook around a proactive, community-based approach to crime prevention.
We especially appreciate the partnership and initiative of Jenn Krotz from Canadian Rockies Landscape, a Chamber member, and our Community Policing Liaison, Kristin Galanov, whose involvement has helped move this idea from conversation to implementation.
From Cranbrook to the provincial table
The next chapter in this grassroots story took place at UBCM.
On September 15, 2026, the City of Cranbrook met with the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General to discuss the Business Block Watch Pilot Project and seek provincial funding support for its continuation and expansion. Provincial representatives included the Honourable Terry Yung, Minister of State for Community Safety and Integrated Services, along with Chief of Staff Joey Mitchell and Ministerial Advisor Saad Shoaib. Thanks to one of our members, E-KNOW, you can read more here: East Kootenay News Online Weekly
During the meeting with Minister Yung, the City spoke about the impacts of social disorder and property crime on local businesses and specifically brought forward Cranbrook’s Business Block Watch Pilot Project as a made-in-Cranbrook crime-prevention strategy. The City reported that the meeting was also conducted on behalf of the Chamber under the City-Chamber partnership focused on reducing crime impacts on business.
That is meaningful progress: an idea generated through local business concerns, developed through grassroots collaboration in Cranbrook, has now reached the provincial table.
Where do we go from here?
The pilot is deliberately starting at a manageable scale in Cranbrook Industrial Area Zone 1. The next phase is about strengthening participation, improving information sharing, introducing practical Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) support, establishing baseline measures and documenting what we learn so that a repeatable model can be developed.
The longer-term opportunity is bigger.
We look forward to hearing an update following the City’s request for provincial funding support. Additional resources could help continue and expand the program, strengthen coordination, communications, training and measurement, and help determine how a successful model could be replicated across Cranbrook and potentially shared with communities elsewhere in British Columbia. The pilot’s current planning framework specifically identifies documenting lessons from Zone 1 and creating a repeatable model as priorities for future expansion.
There is still work to do, and expansion should be informed by what we learn from the pilot, partner capacity and available resources. But the journey so far demonstrates the value of listening locally, responding quickly and working together.
Expect continued and joint advocacy from the Chamber on all aspects of the challenges associated with crime.
We’re meeting with the Business Block Watch Pilot Project partners tomorrow, October 7th to map out our next steps.
This is grassroots advocacy in action — businesses identifying a challenge, partners coming together around a practical solution, and a local idea earning a place in a conversation with the Province.
That is the kind of responsive, collaborative work the Cranbrook Chamber of Commerce will continue to lead and pursue on behalf of our membership. This work is funded by our members – Join us today.
Follow the project
Want to see where this work began and where it stands today?
See how it began: Cranbrook Chamber Crime Impacts Survey and Business Block Watch work