Steinbach city council has denied a request from the Hanover School Board to close a sidewalk across the street from Steinbach Regional Secondary School. It runs from McKenzie Avenue to Cottonwood Bend. Back in March, the school board asked that it be closed because it has become a gathering place for some students to engage in activities such as smoking, drinking, doing drugs and vandalism.

Deputy Mayor Michael Zwaagstra says the city's administration presented a report on the matter Tuesday and recommended against closing the sidewalk.

"One of the key reasons for that is that there is underground infrastructure that needs to be taken into account. There's an underground storm sewer that was built shortly before the sidewalk was built. So, even if the concrete were to be removed, that area is still a public reserve, it would still need to remain open and accessible (for maintenance of the storm sewer)."

The administration report noted it would be extremely expensive to relocate that section of storm sewer.

Mayor Earl Funk says another reason to keep the sidewalk open is the city's desire to follow the principles of CPTED which stands for Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design.

"When you look at CPTED, controlling crime through community design, they ask for openness. So, if we close that off, we could actually make it look even more appealing for the mischief that's going on."

Funk and Zwaagstra, along with councillor Jac Siemens, say the activities happening along that stretch of sidewalk remain a frustrating issue and still need to be dealt with. Siemens suggests the starting point is to find out why the students are there in the first place. Funk adds all parties need to come together and develop a solution.

"We're frustrated, RCMP are frustrated, the neighbourhood is frustrated, the school division is frustrated. I think we need to sit down and come up with a good solution that's going to work for everyone."

In the meantime, Zwaagstra has the following recommendation to area residents.

"Certainly my advice would be that when there are issues, particularly anything of a criminal nature, to immediately contact RCMP. That way they can make a record of it and they can identify patterns and deal with, in particular, some of the repeat occurrences and repeat offenders. It's important for people to be proactive in that regard."