Victoria mayor Marianne Alto says Thursday's clean-up of the encampment on the 900 block of Pandora was mostly a routine operation, just larger than usual since bylaw officers had missed a couple of days previously.
The Our Place Society said at the time that the operation looked larger, with a greater number of bylaw officers and police showing up with trucks and bins. Campers were told to leave and unattended belongings were impounded. Other debris was hauled away.
"Unfortunately because there hadn't been that daily attention that there usually is for a couple days, they went in with a few more people than usual and stayed a bit longer than usual. So, of course, the look of that is a bit more intense than the usual daily clean-up," says Alto. "The idea there was, really, not to do anything more than is usually done but to do it a little bit better."
Grant McKenzie with Our Place told CFAX he was concerned about the lack of warning. Alto says the city will consider more advanced notice in the future, but again states that bylaw officers do this work on most days and campers are supposed to pack-up at 7am every morning.
Several of the campers who were moved along Thursday have already returned.