EDITORIAL: Mac's on hot seat

On average in 2012, every nine days a Mac’s Convenience Store has been hit by an armed robber.

Over the course of a year, that works out to exactly 40 incidents.

The problem was exacerbated this past week, when four times a Mac’s clerk was at the business end of a knife or syringe.

Mac’s says it’s doing all it can to stem the problem and protect its employees, going as far as asking to join the city’s crime prevention council.

Police say they are working with Mac’s to offer up solutions.

The city says something has to be done.

The problem is everyone’s pointing fingers and no one is finding solutions, real ones that work.

At the heart of the matter is what appears to be a growing substance-abuse problem in Thunder?Bay.

Mac’s, with its apparent lax security measures, has made itself an easy target.

Thieves know clerks have been told not to resist, to hand over whatever cash is in the till and not fight back.

The trouble with this is that criminals get more brazen, possibly putting clerks at other stores in danger too. This week we saw a clerk cut with a knife in the latest incident.

Fixing the long-term problem does require an interim fix to keep employees safe. Bulletproof security barriers are a good start, or a buzz-in situation after 11 p.m.

The ball is now back in Mac’s court.