‘A bit of a menace’: Vancouver police frustrated with gun-shaped lighter incidents, as councillor pushes for ban

Gun-shaped torches are being more popular across Metro Vancouver – and causing problems for police.

Vancouver police say they’re growing increasingly frustrated by repeated calls involving gun-shaped lighters — novelty items that are being mistaken for real firearms and triggering major emergency responses.

“You can imagine something like this pointed at an officer or seen by a member of the public in a dark alley in the middle of the night,” said Sgt. Steve Addison with the Vancouver Police Department. “We’re going to think this is a gun, and we’re going to treat it as if it’s real.”

In late June, officers surrounded a home in East Vancouver following a report of a gun. The response lasted several hours, only to end with police discovering the item in question was a gun-lookalike lighter.

Addison says these kinds of calls are becoming more common.

“Anecdotally, I can tell you we’re receiving multiple calls each week,” he said. “On Canada Day, we received a report of somebody with a gun in Thornton Park down by the Main Street Skytrain Station. We treated that report as real, and it drew a significant police response.”

Coun. Mike Klassen, who introduced a motion in May to ban the sale of gun-shaped lighters, says the risk to public safety is too high.

“Gun shape-lighters are, frankly, they’re a bit of a menace,” Klassen said.

“They don’t serve any real purpose and they create a huge amount of risk, where police come out in big numbers because they think they’re real weapons. And, potentially, somebody could get hurt.”

But not everyone agrees with the approach.

Rod Giltaca, CEO of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, says the proposed bylaw would create confusion and raise questions about enforcement.

“If they did such a thing, what does that (bylaw) look like?” he said. “I mean, you know, somebody that has a gun-shaped lighter, maybe that walked in from Burnaby, that gets caught with it – you know, lighting a cigarette or something – are they going to face a firearm charge or are they going to just face confiscation?”

The proposed bylaw, if passed, would target sellers of these lighters and not those who possess them, at least for now.

Still, Klassen says the city has a responsibility to act.

“I think that sending the signal of making sure that they are banned for sale would be a very important first step to make sure that we don’t have these around,” he said.

City staff are expected to present a report in the coming weeks, with council set to vote on the bylaw shortly after. It’s widely expected to pass.