Const. Craig Brister is standing in front of a small crowd of business owners in the St. Lawrence Centre on Toronto’s Esplanade, assuring them that the Pan Am Games will not be another G20 when it comes to policing.

“As soon as we start talking about all these extra officers that will be in town and all this extra security, people immediately get this idea of G20 in their mind,” says Brister, an officer seconded from 32 Division to serve as the Toronto Police Service’s business and community liaison for the Games.

“This is a sporting event,” he says. “This is family, front row. That’s the big thing we’re trying to push. But at the same time there needs to be a security component.”

That means a heightened police presence around venues, not only to secure them but to enforce no-standing zones and street closings.

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It also means there will be police sweeps, beginning June 26 {+ } in areas such as the Pan Am Athletes Village, the 14-hectare fenced-in area in the Canary District — which is next door to the Distillery District, one of the Games’ three festival sites.

Brister says he hates the term “police sweeps,” and it shouldn’t be misinterpreted.

“Officers are getting trained to do security checks,” says Brister. “They tour the venues when we take possession of them. They also tour them during the Games. What they’re looking for is the obvious — security problems, gaps in the security, safety issues — anything that’s going to affect game play or spectator safety.”

But the heightened security won’t mean a repeat of G20, agrees police board chair Alok Mukherjee.

The 2010 summit was marred by overzealous policing by multiple forces, including arbitrary searches of people carrying backpacks or wearing bandanas. A report by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director said many officers “ignored the basic rights citizens have under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Earlier this year, the Ontario Court of Appeal said that officers from York Region Police breached the Charter rights of a group of G20 demonstrators who were forced to submit to a search before they were allowed near the security fence.

The security plan for the Games has local forces policing venues in their own municipalities, removing any confusion — which occurred during G20 planning — about who is in charge.

Toronto police have cut the number of officers who can be on vacation during the two weeks of the Games nearly in half to accommodate Pan Am security.

Also, 9,000 unarmed private security guards have been hired to provide access control at events.

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The “OPP will police highways and the transportation of people from one event to another,” says Mukherjee. “And they have overall responsibility for the planning. But the responsibility for local policing remains with the local police.” He adds that former chief Bill Blair made it clear at a board meeting that it’s the chief who is “ultimately accountable.”

Security preparations for the Games have also been more integrated than they were in 2010, not only in Toronto, but among provincial authorities and all the regions hosting Pan Am events, Mukherjee says. There has been more information sharing between the civilian police board and the police service as well.

“I think at G20, it wasn’t that the board didn’t ask questions,” says Mukherjee. “It was more a case of the board not receiving the answers.”

The Games are also viewed as being a “much lower threat level event,” says Mukherjee, although preparations are being made to deal with emergencies.