Bob Mackin
Sources tell theBreaker.news that a report involving multiple agencies clears Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim of drinking and driving during his first 100 days in office.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim (Mackin)
The latter could raise eyebrows, because the OPCC’s website says the independent agency “oversees municipal police misconduct complaints and investigations.”
OPCC deputy commissioner Andrea Spindler said she would not provide any information to theBreaker.news, “due to the strict confidentiality provisions of the Police Act.”
In addition to being mayor, Sim was the chair of the Vancouver Police Board until June 2024.
Rumours of Sim’s post-2022 election partying spread during January 2023.
ABC Vancouver leader Sim parted ways with his campaign manager-turned-chief of staff Kareem Allam on Feb. 6, 2023. At the time, Sim said he respected and admired Allam. Allam said he would return to his Fairview Strategy firm, but “continue to support the team.”
Allam now says he was fired from the $150,067-a-year job and believes it was linked to concerns he raised about the allegations.
“I never had any direct knowledge of the incident. If no witnesses came forward to corroborate this, this unsubstantiated rumour, then that’s just how our system of justice works,” Allam said in an interview with theBreaker.news.
“But what I can confirm is that I did receive a call while I was in the hospital [for a minor procedure], informing me of an alleged incident. I said let’s get to the bottom of it and, if it’s true — I hope it’s not true, but if it’s true — he’s going to have to resign. This is going to end up being worse than Gordon Campbell. And then Monday morning, while I was in a briefing with the city manager and other councillors, I was dismissed and discharged for my duties. I can’t imagine that I was discharged for performance reasons.”
Campbell, B.C.’s premier from 2001 to 2011, was arrested in January 2003 in Maui and kept overnight in the drunk tank. He pleaded no contest to drunk driving and a judge ordered him to pay a US$913 fine.
When he was 18, Sim pleaded guilty to failing to stop under the Motor Vehicle Act after being charged in 1989 with dangerous driving.
Sim’s office has not responded for comment.
In December, theBreaker.news spotted Sim under a plainclothes police escort, being chauffeured away from an event in an unmarked sport utility vehicle. Vancouver Police said that was because Sim is under a temporary security escort after personal threats.
News about the Sim drunk driving investigation comes three days after VPD chief Adam Palmer announced he would retire at the end of April, five months before his contract is up. The previous week, Sim and Palmer announced the VPD’s $5 million “Task Force Barrage” to crack down on gangs and chronic offenders in the Downtown Eastside.
On Feb. 20, ABC announced its two candidates for the April 3 by-election. One of them is Ralph Kaisers, the boss of the Vancouver Police Union, which publicly endorsed Sim and ABC in the 2022 election.
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