Nanaimo pubs are putting Crime Stoppers posters in front of a captive audience – in their washrooms.
The laminated posters, designed by the second-year graphic art students at Vancouver Island University and printed by Eye Mean Graphics, were hung in the Queen's biffies Thursday.
The Queen's is the first downtown night club to feature the posters. Owner Jerry Hong will put them up in his other establishments and hopes other pubs will follow suit.
"Being a part of Crime Stoppers and helping reduce crime, in downtown and anywhere else, has always been a challenge and a goal of ours to make downtown a better place for everybody to come," Hong said.
The posters are another link in a chain of programs helping improve Nanaimo's downtown core, where crime and violence declined drastically in recent years.
"The target audience we're looking at is age 19 to 35," said Const. Gary O'Brien, Nanaimo RCMP spokesman. "These are the people who are out in the community seeing and hearing things and these posters are good reminders they can always call Crime Stoppers and report crime."
The poster designs are the winners of a Nanaimo and District Crime Stoppers contest offering cash prizes. Each poster bears an image reflecting crime and boldly displays the Crime Stoppers telephone number.
VIU students have designed posters for Crime Stoppers since 2008.
"We asked them to design a poster they thought reflected Crime Stoppers. That' s all we told them," O'Brien said. "They developed four posters each."
Chuck Campbell, Nanaimo and District Crime Stoppers president, said the posters are also requested for Crime Stoppers conferences and other venues in B.C. and Alberta, which in turn promotes the students' talents.