In Toronto, security does indeed take a village.
Wayne Zronik, SVP, music and live events, Air Canada Centre, Toronto, explained how a consortium of buildings in the downtown core has formed the SAFE Group, which is a cornerstone of security at the inner-city venue — and its neighbors' facilities.
“We’re right in city center and there’s a group of buildings that work together from a security perspective and share information along with the police,” said Zronik. “Our building is a fairly hard target inside; the challenge to our building is how do we continue hardening the building given the proximity to Union Station, the main train station, which we are literally attached to, and all the other buildings in downtown Toronto?”
The answer is the SAFE Group, which has in excess of 30 buildings and organizations including law enforcement as members. Air Canada Centre’s neighbors include a number of significant tourist attractions and entertainment venues including Ripleys Aquarium, The Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Rogers Centre and The CN Tower.
“The purpose of the SAFE Group is to collectively share information, network and test our corporate crisis response and management systems in conjunction with municipal response agencies,” said Zronik. “We want Torontonians and all those who visit Toronto to know we are proactively practicing collective methods of emergency preparedness against threats to our business community within the city," said Zronik.
SAFE’s mandate:
• To identify, prioritize, communicate and solve public safety, policing and
community concerns and problems.
• To network and share information to achieve common public safety and order.
• To collectively train for business continuity plans to assure industry best practices
• To develop strategies to resolve identified problems and other long-term issues.
• To address the need for ongoing and collective training between the municipal
and private sectors.
There are weekly meetings and a dedicated radio station that everybody is linked to.
“If anything is happening, we can communicate in real-time,” said Zronik.
The group is chaired by the Toronto Police Services and managed by the buildings.